Werther’s Original is often seen as a brand for grandparents -- a consumer perception that needed to change in order to unlock true growth and drive relevance with the younger generation. With the primary objective of bringing in new households, we set out to refresh and modernize the Werther’s brand -- just in time for their biggest sales period: the Fall season.
In order to redefine the Werther’s Original brand -- we needed to uncover a relevant human truth core to the Fall season: something that both new and existing consumers could connect with, while still being ownable and authentic to Werther’s. Our research ultimately indicated that we are all hard-wired to value what Fall stands for — comfort, connection and what’s called “psychological warmth”— especially tastes, smells and traditions from our childhood. And one of those top Fall-associated flavors just happened to be caramel.
To help establish our unique connection and introduce Werther’s caramel as the original taste of fall, we created the “The Original Fall Flavor” campaign. Core to this campaign was a refreshed, modernized look and feel highlighting the full portfolio of Werther’s caramel offerings -- brought to life across TV, print, digital, social and a custom partnership with the Food Network.
Pushing off the existing Werther’s Original logo and packaging that was not changing, we created a limited-edition lockup that pulled from our heritage with serifts and style, but catapulted the brand into this decade. In digital and print we created a fresh, complimentary color palette that contrasted with the packaging and grabbed attention. Since when is Werther’s bright pink and baby blue? Since now!
We also created a series of hand-drawn 2-D illustrations that were timely, surprising and on brand. They were animated with a sense of whimsy and care, drawing viewers into the product-focused stories. Copy was short, pithy and conversational—always linking back to Werther’s Original as “The Original Fall Flavor.”
For TV and in still photography, we developed authentic, emotive moments that felt captured, not contrived. We created an original score that reflected the acoustic, warm feeling of Fall and made the brand instantly more relevant. Casting, VO, wardrobe and editorial techniques all worked together to make a piece of film that felt both wildly current and yet true to this classic brand while establishing Werther’s as The Original Fall Flavor.
This ain’t (just) your Grandma’s candy any more!
The Werther’s redesigned “The Original Fall Flavor” campaign successfully over-delivered on our original objective of bringing in new households. Not only did the campaign bring it new buyers, but it also drove positive ROI across other critical business and media objectives:
Brought in 1.3MM new buyers
Drove $3MM in retail sales
Yielded a 92% sell-through for limited-edition fall products
Delivered over 200MM impressions across media touchpoints
Saw social engagement rates 470% above category benchmarks.
