New Campaign Interview: Taste The Truth

Juan Antonio Carrillo
Creative Team DDB Spain
 

Alvaro Guzmán
Creative Team DDB Spain
 

Tell us about your role in the creation of this work.

We led this project from the preliminary pitch brief through to the development of the idea, creation, production and roll out of the campaign

Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about?

The campaign had one single-minded objective; to raise awareness among the American public of the indisputable fact that the best extra virgin olive oil comes from Spain. From here came the idea to suggest a possible reason why so many Americans have been kept in the dark about this universal truth, to then provide hard evidence to support why Spanish olive oil is effectively the best product in the market.

Tell us about the creative brief, what did it ask?

The brief was very clear from the start; Spanish olive oil does not have the level of awareness and recognition it deserves in the United States while other countries, with an inferior quality product, enjoy a much better reputation in the market. We needed to shift perceptions and start telling Americans the truth.

Which insight led to the creation of this piece of work?

The key insight is backed by a plethora of research studies and hard data. Another plus is that Spain is the world’s biggest producer of olive oil, the biggest exporter to the US as well as the country boasting the most industry awards for its products, the benefits of which are supported by an infinite number of medical and scientific studies. Yet, despite all of this, Spanish olive oil is widely unknown in the United States. How can this be possible? The only possible answer could lie in the fact that it had fallen foul of some form of conspiracy theory, so popular in a country that famously revels in them.

Can you share with us alternative ideas (if any) for this campaign? Why was this idea chosen?

To be honest, from the word go we fell in love with the idea of whipping up the interest and attention of the American public with something that we knew would get them excited like a conspiracy theory. From there, we built the campaign around the concept of demonstrating the truth regarding the superior quality of Spanish olive oil. The campaign was developed in two phases. The first to maximize awareness with the Oliveleaks documentary film putting forward possible reasons why Spanish olive oil doesn’t have the recognition it deserves in the US, and a second phase providing a rational explanation of the product’s properties, extolling its virtues. All of this executed under the Taste the Truth umbrella concept.

How did the client initially react to this idea?

The client was looking to create a high awareness, high impact, disruptive campaign from the word go. They wanted something that was a far cry from the more traditional campaign approach focusing primarily on origin, history, variants… They immediately saw the vast potential of the idea under a solid umbrella concept such as Taste the Truth.

Talk about the greatest challenge that you and your team faced during development.

The biggest challenge for us was working with a Spanish product in the American consumer market. Spaniards have a completely different perception of the product to the one Americans have. Another huge and exciting challenge was that of creating a campaign that needed to raise awareness and stand out in a market as huge and demanding as the United States.  

What did you enjoy most about seeing this campaign through? Did you learn anything new from the experience?

Any idea that you see come to life brings tremendous satisfaction, but in this case we felt even more so given the uniqueness of this project and the risks involved, targeting an audience that’s not usual for a Spanish agency. Plus, we got to shoot in the US and launch a campaign that strays from the conventional and into branded content, with an infinity of elements developed exclusively for the American market.

Where do you see this campaign going in the future?

We’ll have to see how the campaign performs over the long term to get a better idea, but from the data we already have it looks like the first phase is working very well. If we finally manage to spell out the truth to Americans about Spanish olive oil and get them to take everything we have told them into account at the moment of purchase we should be successful. Additionally, Spanish olive oil is so very good that nobody will be able to say that they made the wrong choice once they have tried it. As we say in the campaign, finding out the truth is as simple as tasting it.