It began with a simple truth: Lemons were in peril.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, the humble lemon wedge — once perched proudly upon glasses and plates nationwide — began disappearing from restaurants. Demand stalled. Garnishes went uncut. Citrus confidence waned.
A culinary injustice of staggering proportions.
This could not stand.
Our ambition was not to advertise lemons — heavens no. Instead, we sought to restore their cultural mystique. To render lemons not merely desirable, but irresistible. To drive renewed demand and restaurant sales without appearing as traditional advertising.
So, we intervened.
Naturally, Denver, fluent in conspiracy and comfortable with subterranean intrigue, presented itself as the ideal proving ground.
There, we introduced the Sublemonal campaign, guided by the Lemon Order, known (to no one) as the L.M.N.O. A fictional, suspiciously organized secret society devoted to restoring citrus prominence and allegedly responsible for influencing major global events, including the global lemon supply.
In short order, the L.M.N.O. assumed its position as the shadowy cabal behind life’s great enigmas: global politics, maritime disappearances, algorithmic anomalies, weather manipulation, unexplained monoliths, time zones, and what some still insist was a “routine” moon landing.
Regardless, our mission was straightforward:
• Reignite lemon demand among restaurant partners
• Spark social engagement
• Create buzzworthy activations through immersive digital and OOH placements
• Generate earned media without revealing the client
In short: make people pause and ask, “What precisely is going on with lemons?”
Then, let them enjoy finding out.
After establishing the Lemon Order’s authority, pyramids, proclamations, the whole citrus cabinet, we did what anyone would do after building a dignified fruit institution: we started poking it. We wanted to know how much room existed inside the voice. How far could it stretch? How strange could it become without collapsing into chaos?
That tension, composed authority paired with intentional absurdity, became the engine of everything.
If the Lemon Order were real (and we’re not confirming that it isn’t), it would require a visual system capable of carrying both legitimacy and mischief. At the center sits the All-Seeing Lemon Eye: an omnipotent citrus orb perched atop a pyramid. From there, the mythology expands into a family of marks, ceremonial badges stamped with Latin text (because nothing communicates legitimacy like a language most people politely pretend to understand), and a bisected lemon forming a weeping eye with a single juice tear. It is unclear what it mourns.
The symbols borrow from classic conspiracy tropes, watchful eyes, official seals, pyramids, but intentionally reject the heavy gothic ornamentation of traditional secret societies. Instead, we built the world with clean shapes, bold line work and disciplined layouts that feel contemporary and, most importantly, plausible.
Typographically, we created tension by pairing Commuter Sans, a geometric sans set in exaggerated, widely tracked all-caps, with Fleisch Wurst, a simplified blackletter with chiseled terminals that introduce a subtle, slightly sinister edge. The palette is unapologetically yellow: pale butter, mid-tone citrus, honey gold, supported by black, white and a single strategic green leaf. A near-monochrome universe that feels unmistakable in-feed and faintly surreal. Generous white space and restraint keep the system elevated. Which, if one were running a secret society, would be considered good practice.
Photography followed suit. Lo-fi, documentation-first imagery. Direct flash. Harsh highlights. Grain and halftone textures that feel photocopied, rescanned, passed between hands. Backgrounds washed in yellow or gray, environmental context reduced, as though something has been partially redacted. The result: a world that felt discovered rather than produced.
And once that world felt real enough, we let it behave accordingly.
The humor was never a tidy joke you could underline and label. It was occasionally, deliberately dumb. Wonderfully unnecessary updates. Announcements without announcements. Lore layered piece by piece until the Lemon Order felt less like a concept drafted in a conference room and more like a living entity that might take a sharp left turn mid-proclamation.
That elasticity created the sweet spot for Sublemonal’s personality. And once we found it, we ran.
But a citrus conspiracy cannot thrive in abstraction. It requires sidewalks. Patios. A population comfortable with the unexplained.
Denver checked every box.
The campaign unfolded hyper-locally. Three digital billboards and 36 interactive kiosks appeared across business and entertainment districts near participating restaurant partners, allowing intrigue to convert directly into foot traffic. The placements delivered over 5.6 million impressions. More than 2,000 pedestrians tapped into the kiosks, spending nearly two minutes interacting before being guided toward nearby restaurants.
Fifteen brand ambassadors canvassed the city, hanging 300 posters and distributing 5,000 lemons alongside thousands of branded pieces, logging nearly a million steps in the process. Downtown Denver in May briefly belonged to a yellow-clad collective.
The local activation extended seamlessly into digital. Geo-targeted content drove more than 33,000 web sessions and reached over 6.3 million people. Denver-based influencers amplified the intrigue, generating more than one million engagements as speculation turned into conversation.
Then came the Rockies game.
Brand ambassadors, dressed head to toe in yellow regalia with tin-foil-coated baseball helmets, calmly bit into lemons while spelling “Sublemonal” across handmade signs in the stands. The Jumbotron obliged. The broadcast cameras followed. Reddit threads bloomed. Who were they? Why the lemons? Performance art? Secret society?
Confusion turned into curiosity. Curiosity into participation. Participation into collaborative absurdity. A shared dialect emerged online, mysterious syntax no reasonable individual would write alone. Which is when you know you’ve done something right.
Local news outlets covered the phenomenon, generating an additional 3.3 million earned impressions and lending the Order a faint air of civic legitimacy. Google search trends showed sustained interest in “lemons” throughout the campaign window. Most importantly, restaurant partners reported increased lemon purchase volume during activation weeks.
It was never one tidy joke. It was a series of deliberate, occasionally ridiculous decisions stacked carefully on top of one another, a carefully engineered barrel of mischief.
Phase one of the Lemon Order’s plan: a success.
The mystery unfolded where many great mysteries thrive: on social media.
In six short weeks, the Sublemonal social campaign pulled in over 6.3 million impressions, 4.7 million video views, and 1.4 million engagements across social platforms. The strange, lemony posts created intrigue, leading engagement rates to beat industry benchmarks as viewers dug in to investigate.
On Instagram alone, more than 31,000 people visited the profile, actively trying to decode what was going on. Plus, TikTok ranked Sublemonal in the top 25% for reach among food & beverage content during the campaign period. Influencers added fuel to the fire, generating more than 91,000 views with a 3.9% engagement rate, outperforming typical averages.
Meanwhile, across Denver, the integrated Sublemonal campaign racked up a total of 15.1 million impressions. Outdoor placements alone delivered over 5.6 million of them. And the interactive kiosks didn’t just sit there looking pretty, people spent nearly two minutes engaging with the content, showing genuine interest. The campaign generated 3.3 million earned media impressions, including coverage from The Denver Post and multiple local news segments.
Most importantly? Restaurant partners increased lemon purchase volume. A 29% increase to be exact.
A very serious outcome for something that started with a very unserious conspiracy.
