Gay Lea Foods

The launch of Gay Lea’s Spreadables Butter was far from smooth for John St. While it was popular in Europe, Canadians were unfamiliar with the product. Meanwhile, the company hoped to use the launch of the product to build a national profile for the brand. And then there was the competition, which not only dominated the category, but cost three times less on a per-gram basis.

Research showed that consumers agreed butter’s taste was superior to margarine’s. They were also increasingly looking for more natural, less processed foods. John St. decided to leverage Spreadables’ taste superiority and convenience.

The strategy was to question the need for margarine now that spreadable butter is on the market. With a limited media budget, the agency focused on print, OOH and banner ads. The copy? “Margarine has 14 ingredients. Milk isn’t one of them” and “We made butter spreadable because they couldn’t make margarine taste good.”

In Ontario, while the overall butter market was experiencing a decline of 10%, Gay Lea Speadables’ dollar volume has shown an increase of 40% since the start of the campaign and a 212% increase versus the same January-to-June period a year ago.