Reform Creative team up with Barrett Dixon Bell (BDB) and work alongside them in producing an advertising campaign for cranberry and speciality fruit ingredient giant, Ocean Spray Ingredient Technology Group (ITG).

BDB asked Reform to work on the account due to their extensive portfolio of creative design projects and track record of successful advertising campaigns.

Ocean Spray required advertising for UK and US food trade magazines to market one of their main products – Sweetened Dried Cranberries (SDCs). The aim was to convince manufacturers that they would sell more products if they use SDCs in their cereals and granola bars.

The approach taken by Reform and BDB was to inject humour into the overall concept to enable the adverts to stand out from the mainly unimaginative style of advertising found in food industry trade magazines. This was achieved through a series of hand-illustrated cartoons featuring self-satisfied food manufacturer employees in various scenarios, claiming that ‘they’ have found the solution to increasing the company's sales.

Graham Walker, Designer at Reform comments

“Originally the intention was to use photographic imagery in the adverts. The idea of using cartoon illustrations actually stems from the initial scamps that we presented to BDB and Ocean Spray in the early stages of the project. Everybody involved felt that this style of illustration would receive the desired response.”

Designed as pastiche newspaper articles, the adverts included results from a consumer research poll, which not only back up the statements made, but also increase confidence that Ocean Spray SDCs are the ingredient necessary to drive up sales in the food retail market.