Mayonnaise is a condiment that a lot of people love to hate. In fact, in a recent Harris Poll, 15% of respondents said they flat-out despise mayo. And they’re not afraid to share their dislike publicly. To make matters worse, mayo consumption is highly seasonal. When Summer is over and we’ve eaten our last burger and shoved the last forkful of potato salad into our mouths, mayonnaise sales fall off a cliff.
Facing their annual sales slump, Hellmann’s dared to not just stabilize their sales during the Fall but actually steal market share from their competitors.
To ignite sales and increase market share during the post Summer slowdown, we needed to make Hellmann’s top of mind, even when when Mayo wasn’t.
We knew to turn things around we had to stoke the passion of our most ardent supporters.
Mayonnaise is a condiment that a lot of people love to hate. In fact, in a recent Harris Poll, 15% of respondents said they flat-out despise mayo. And they’re not afraid to share their dislike publicly.
Given this, we needed a way to outshout the trolls in culture, giving mayo lovers a rallying point to be proud of their mayo allegiance.
We found the perfect champion to bring his genuine Hellmann’s love in Tennessee Titans starting quarterback, Will Levis. As a superfan who made us TikTok famous by posting a video in which he added mayo to his coffee, Will was the ideal person to go all-in.
To truly bring his passion for our condiment to life, we asked him not just to wear a brand logo on his jersey, but to wear Hellmann’s all over his body.
Playing off the tropes of the world of fragrance, we created Will’s signature fragrance called ‘Will Levis No.8’, parfum de mayonnaise, a nod to his player number.
We worked with a perfumer to create a pleasing scent, one with a sensual musky base, mayonnaise accord, a burst of tart lemon, an herbaceous element of parsley mixed with creamy vanilla and the addition of coffee undertones, a nod to Will’s past TikTok mayo in coffee post.
Hellmann’s gained +11bps of dollar share, which outpaced the category growth rate by +2.4% in launch week 2 and has sustained share growth in every week since launch.
The work garnered over 12.3 billion earned impressions with 1,325 pieces of earned coverage and over 1.1 billion organic social impressions.
Hellmann’s owned social performance surpassed the brand’s average engagement rate for organic posts by 5%.
The announcement post was Hellmann’s top-performing Instagram post of all time.
Between 9/13 and 9/17, daily drops of between 250 and 500 bottles were released for purchase. Drops sold out in minutes. It total, we released, and sold, 2,150 bottles of Will Levis No.8, Parfum de Mayonnaise.
