The Pickle Post

📨 The Brief

The relish export business was in a pickle due to COVID-19 and Brexit. And with Christmas around the corner, we wanted to bring families together and remind the nation of the familiarity of a heritage brand and all the cosy, safe feelings this implies.

The brief was simple: help a £1.60 staple of the British shopping basket re-establish itself as part of family Christmas tradition. Branston needed to strike back against ‘posh’ pickle competition, as well as tackling the changes in how we interact with loved ones in a post-pandemic / Brexit status quo.

📨 The Response

The team collectively thought about Christmas traditions which could feed into this solution. We landed upon sending something to a loved one, a small thing, well-chosen, could carry a huge emotional weight. The Pickle Post was born - a parallel Post Office - one that could circumvent borders, Brexit and the pandemic itself. Somewhere shoppers could do something to help their relatives overseas.

The flagship Pickle Post was activated in central London, creating a user experience for all pickle fans across the capital. To bring the campaign to life, I created the brand identity for the Pickle Post as well as over 30 unique assets mimicking a traditional Post Office including; hand-drawn Christmas cards with ‘cheesy puns’, Branston scented gift wrap, bespoke stamps and packaging which would send Branston across the globe.

The activation was seen across the UK with Tesco and Sainsbury’s hosting their own scaled down Pickle Post pop-ups in 70 locations. For in-store I created Branston green Pickle Post boxes complete with jar shaped letterboxes and bespoke FSD units, which would also feature ephemera such as my illustrated Christmas cards in each store.

In total, the campaign sent over 600 jars across Europe in our specially created packaging. That’s a whole lot of Branston…