Skip Express Lane - The Inflation Cookbook
Skip Express Lane and Food Banks Canada needed to address the severe impact of rising food inflation on Canadians, who were struggling to afford healthy groceries. They aimed to position Skip Express Lane as an innovative, budget-conscious solution, empowering families to make informed choices and save money amidst economic uncertainty.
Creative Idea
A digital cookbook used real-time data to find cheap, healthy ingredients and recipes.
The Inflation Cookbook empowered Canadians to combat rising food costs by providing a real-time digital grocery tool that tracked price fluctuations, identified best deals, and generated healthy AI-powered recipes, helping families save money and maintain nutritious diets amidst economic hardship.
Turning Real Time Inflation Into The Smartest Cart
Tracking 400 Ingredients in Real Time
To power the tool, Dentsu Creative Canada developed a custom algorithm that functioned like a stock market tracker for groceries. The tech crawled online supermarket data across 10 major retailers in 80+ locations nationwide, monitoring price volatility for over 400 key ingredients. This allowed the UI/UX to adopt an "austere" design language, intentionally mimicking financial software to emphasize the data-driven nature of the project. To maintain agility and bypass expensive food styling, the team utilized Midjourney to generate hyper-realistic, AI-powered recipe photography in minutes.
Saving Families 21 Million Dollars
The campaign’s utility translated into massive scale, reaching over 400 million earned media impressions in its first week. Beyond awareness, it drove 28,600 weekly active users and sent 3,000 new customers to Skip Express Lane within seven days. By December 2023, the tool was projected to save Canadian families a total of $21.8 million, with the average family of four reducing their weekly grocery bill by 20.3%.
Brand Agnostic AI for Good
While the campaign boosted Skip Express Lane’s profile, it prioritized consumer utility by remaining brand-agnostic. Users could purchase their "Smartest Cart" via Skip or export the list to shop at any local physical store. This "AI for Good" approach was bolstered by a partnership with The Globe and Mail and a commitment from Skip to donate all surplus food from its 23 fulfillment centers to local food banks, alongside a $100,000 donation to provide 200,000 meals to Canadians in need. Chief Strategy Officer Rafik Belmesk and CCO Jordan Doucette led the initiative, shifting the brand's perception from a convenience service to a vital health-conscious resource.
Creative Strategy Deconstructed
Company
Skip Express Lane, a grocery delivery service, leveraged its logistics and data capabilities to track real-time food prices and offer smart shopping solutions.
Category
Grocery shopping typically involves static pricing and manual comparison, leaving consumers vulnerable to price volatility and making healthy eating challenging on a budget.
Customer
Canadians were deeply anxious about soaring food inflation, struggling to afford healthy groceries and feeling powerless against rising costs, often sacrificing nutrition.
Culture
The pervasive national conversation around unprecedented food inflation and cost-of-living crises created a critical need for practical, immediate financial relief and empowerment.
Company
Skip Express Lane, a grocery delivery service, leveraged its logistics and data capabilities to track real-time food prices and offer smart shopping solutions.
Category
Grocery shopping typically involves static pricing and manual comparison, leaving consumers vulnerable to price volatility and making healthy eating challenging on a budget.
Strategy:
Empower consumers with real-time data and actionable solutions to navigate economic hardship and regain control over essential spending.
Customer
Canadians were deeply anxious about soaring food inflation, struggling to afford healthy groceries and feeling powerless against rising costs, often sacrificing nutrition.
Culture
The pervasive national conversation around unprecedented food inflation and cost-of-living crises created a critical need for practical, immediate financial relief and empowerment.
Strategy:
Empower consumers with real-time data and actionable solutions to navigate economic hardship and regain control over essential spending.
Results
The campaign successfully brought the service to over 2 million+ Canadians. It achieved $21.8 million in projected savings by December 2023. Users experienced 20.3% weekly savings for a family of 4. The tool garnered 28,600 weekly users. The campaign received extensive media coverage from numerous outlets including Bloomberg, Reddit, MSN, National Post, The Telegraph, Global News, Radio, Le Soleil, TAXI, Yahoo!, The Globe and Mail, CBC, Toronto Sun, Flipboard, and TrendHunter.
2M+
Canadians reached
$21.8M
projected savings
20.3%
weekly savings for family of 4
Strategy Technique
Build an Utility, Not an Ad
Instead of traditional advertising, the campaign created 'The Inflation Cookbook' - a practical digital tool. This utility directly addressed consumers' urgent need to save on groceries, positioning the brand as a helpful solution provider.
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Creative Technique
Turn Message into Product
The campaign transformed the urgent message of fighting food inflation into a tangible, useful digital product - 'The Inflation Cookbook'. This tool directly embodied the brand's commitment to helping Canadians save money, making the message actionable and highly relevant.
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Craft Breakdown
This campaign's craft is exceptional in its ingenious core idea to leverage real-time data and AI, expertly executed through a sophisticated digital platform to provide a tangible solution to a critical social issue.
The sophisticated execution of the idea through the algorithm that crawls online supermarket websites, tracks over 400 key ingredients, and delivers a personalized 'smartest cart' demonstrates outstanding technical prowess.
The innovative application of AI for generating healthy recipes based on best-priced ingredients and creating hyper-real food photography (Midjourney) is a crucial and impressive component of the tool's functionality and appeal.
The magic comes from the strategic insight of Ideamaking, brought to life through the seamless integration of advanced Digital Craft, AI capabilities, and thoughtful Design, creating a powerful solution for a widespread societal challenge.
