It was the award-winning Lidl stealth project of a pop-up star restaurant in Stockholm that piqued the interest of our guest author Gregor Ade in the Swedish agency Ingo. Ade - Managing Partner of the branding agency Peter Schmidt Group, Eurobest juror and himself a trained designer - spoke to the creators of the campaign at the Stockholm agency , who were awarded the Design Grand Prix at Eurobest for their Lidl work.

Many consultants and creatives in this country could certainly learn something from the way the Swedish advertisers present agency ideas to their clients.

For some weeks now, Lidl in Germany has been attempting a radical image change: away from being a cheap discounter and towards becoming a quality provider. There has been discussion in our industry and also in W&V as to whether this step can succeed. Doesn't the campaign look a bit too much like Edeka? Are closeup stock photos of water-wetted vegetables enough to convince customers? Against this current background, my visit to Ingo in Stockholm gains additional excitement: The agency has also staged quality for Lidl in Sweden - not as a classic campaign, however, but in the form of the pop-up restaurant Dill. For three weeks, star chef Michael Wignall thrilled audiences and critics alike. Then the secret was revealed: all the ingredients, from the meat to the last pinch of salt, came from Lidl. The project convinced at the Eurobest Festival of Creativity not only with its idea, but also with the loving design down to the smallest detail.

For W&V, I traded German spring for Swedish snowfall and visited the team behind the Grand Prix winner in Stockholm. Björn Stahl (Executive Creative Director), Josefine Richards (Copywriter) and Rikard Holst (Art Director) told me how they convinced Lidl of their unusual idea - and why the show only starts when the chef is actually behind the stove.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From left: Björn Stahl, Josefine Richards, W&V guest author Gregor Ade, Rikard Holst (Fig. PSG).

In Germany, a campaign was launched a few weeks ago in which Lidl focuses on the quality of its products. With food photography and infographics, for example, about the ingredients of the bread sold. The company wants to move away from its image as a "cheap store". Was the starting situation similar for you in Sweden?

Björn Stahl: Yes. We were also concerned with the issue of quality. Lidl requested a campaign from us for this and actually expected a TV spot and a classic campaign rollout.

Don't you buy quality from Lidl in Sweden?

Stahl: All discount grocery stores that have tried to gain a foothold in the Swedish market have had huge problems - Lidl did, but so did Netto. In other areas - such as home improvement stores - cheap deals work, but when it comes to cheap food, we Swedes become suspicious: we are convinced that quality must have its price. The issue of regionality is also important: Swedes prefer Swedish products.

And yourselves? Have you taken Lidl's promise of quality?

Rikard Holst: We have tried the products. And were honestly surprised themselves.

It is precisely this point that seems decisive to me: the "proof of concept" through one's own trial and error. I show Björn the current campaign "Lidl lohnt sich" (Lidl is worthwhile) full of fine advertising looks and promises of quality. We agree: the aesthetics may work, but they fail to provide the most important thing: proof that all these claims are actually true.

Holst: We quickly realized that we couldn't do a normal campaign: No one would actually take the issue of quality off Lidl's hands. We wanted something that was real life, that was verifiable. Deliver a "guarantee of authenticity", so to speak.

So how did you come up with the idea of a pop-up restaurant?

Holst: That wasn't the first idea at all. We just thought: you have to eat the products and find out afterwards that they come from Lidl. In this way, a real element of surprise could be achieved. At first, we therefore planned to build a deli store in front of a normal Lidl store. Like this: You're strolling through Stockholm, you come across a little store that has wonderful delicatessen in its window. You go in, place your order - and then an employee goes to the back of the LIDL, frees the products from their packaging and pushes them into the customer's hand. Our problem: We simply haven't found a suitable store space. The next step was to turn this idea into a pop-up restaurant, where cooking is done with the highest culinary standards. And exclusively with products from Lidl. Mind you, Lidl itself was still waiting for its classic campaign at this point.

How did your client react when you presented your idea to them?

Stahl: I think the crucial thing at first was not that we presented the idea, but how we did it ...

Namely?

SteelWe knew that our customer expected something completely different - but we were 100 percent convinced of our idea. We thought that the best argument would be if our customer had exactly the same experience as the restaurant visitors would later have! So we invited the Lidl executives around marketing director Caroline Forsshell to dinner and told them that we wanted to talk about a few ideas in a casual setting. We went to one of Stockholm's best restaurants. At a celebrity chef's house, whom we'd introduced and who cooked a fantastic menu that the customer praised profusely. Then, when we told them about our pop-up restaurant idea, the people in charge were skeptical and asked if it was really possible. That was the moment when we called the chef in. He confirmed: "Sure, it's possible. After all, you've only eaten Lidl products tonight." The customer was thrilled.

Björn tells me that this conversation opened the eyes not only of the customer, but also of the agency itself. Today, they more often try to give complex or unusual concepts an emotional moment during their presentation. Ideas sell far better this way than through rationally derived persuasion.  

I can imagine that this was when the challenges really began: A campaign would have been your day-to-day business - but with a restaurant, so many points come into play that an agency can't even map: How do you find a chef, how do you put together a service team that works perfectly? And how do you keep all this a secret?

Josefine Richards: First we looked for a location - and found an old building in Stockholm. Perfect for our idea, but unfortunately without electricity, without water supply, without toilets. A huge logistical challenge, for which we enlisted the support of external designers. Architects, kitchen planners and craftsmen were also involved. On the customer side, there were only three people who were privy to the planning. Everyone knew they were working on a big secret. But it was their own secret, their project. Everyone was aware that if it got out, all the work would be for nothing. At the same time, we set out to find a celebrity chef who would be up for the project. Here it was clear to us right from the start that we would not be able to search in Sweden: Our cooking scene is sworn in, everyone knows everyone. Too risky for a secret project. So we focused on the scene in England.

You flew to the UK for a test meal?

Richards: Yes, actually - we spent two days visiting our candidates. And we will not forget this: Eating opulent menus several times a day, sometimes up to 16 courses and at some point without any hunger. That was already crazy. In the end, we decided on Michael Wignall - because he not only had two Michelin stars, but found the whole operation exciting.

Your restaurant was called Dill - an anagram of Lidl. Some of the pallets used in the interior design are also found in the aisles at Lidl. You have already pretty much exhausted the risk of being discovered ...

Stahl: That's right. But we find that it has added charm to the project. When the secret was out, we switched the letters DILL hanging above the kitchen block - and suddenly it said LIDL. Readable for all. And everyone was like, "Damn, now that I know, I'm noticing all the details, the hidden clues. Why didn't I notice all this?" Dill was, on many levels, a play on his own perception.

Was there a contingency plan in case the secret did come out?

Stahl: Yes, we had worked it out together with Lidl's PR department.

But instead, you opened on schedule. You were immediately "talk of the town" - how do you plan that?

Richards: We invited the press, selected scene greats, restaurant critics, bloggers, multipliers. We have allocated some of the seats via an online reservation site. This went live at noon - and by 12:20 there were no more seats. From then on, everyone wanted to go to Dill, five hundred guests were on the waiting list day after day. Besides, just everything was good, first of all, of course, the food: After three weeks, Dill was on the list of the 100 best restaurants in Sweden.

But after three weeks you also made it public that Dill is a project of Lidl. What were the reactions like?

Richards: Honestly: devastating. It was exactly what our customer was afraid of. We have revealed the secret about a journalist contact to Stockholm's largest daily newspaper - and Lidl has been met with a wave of indignation: Everything is a big fake! Once again, Dill was the hottest topic of conversation in town, in every newspaper, on every blog. However, the "normal" public then quickly took Lidl's side; via social networks, opinion was turned around within a few days and Lidl received the public's applause: The products had finally proven their quality - only the critics and the establishment had disgraced themselves.

So was the whole thing worthwhile for Lidl, too?

Steel: Definitely. As I said: Whether in newspapers, on TV or on social networks - the news that Lidl products have what it takes for gourmet cuisine was everywhere, reached everyone. And while the competition had pulled out of Sweden again, Lidl made a profit for the first time in 2014. For us, Dill is now a story about a courageous client, a willingness to take risks, a bit of madness, and a lot of conceptual and creative heart and soul.

Now doesn't every customer of yours want "something like dill"?

Steel: Clear. Dill is a success by which we must now be measured. But the nice thing is that a lot has changed for our agency and our attitude as well. We have won with Dill in all the major competitions. And the project has become a creative driver for us: We now think much more decisively than before about how we can make a good idea even better. We're also getting more applications from a lot of great people now.

Is there anything you're particularly proud of at Dill?

Holst: Perhaps to the fact that we haven't forgotten the small details despite the project hustle and bustle. It usually takes six months to open a restaurant - we did it in a few weeks. And yet, every menu card and flyer looked just fine. That was also the reason why we submitted Dill to the Eurobest Festival in the design category. We also had the chairs custom designed - by Woytek Weidne and Caroline Axell. Today, the "Popup Chair" is sold in Stockholm designer stores.

And hand on heart: a moment when you thought that everything could fail?

Stahl: Imagine you've convinced the client, set up the restaurant, sent out the invitations - and a week before the opening, the celebrity chef you chose breaks his leg. It sounds like the cliffhanger in a bad movie, but it really was. And hell for all of us! Michael Wignall then came into the restaurant on crutches and conducted his team. And everything worked out, there were nine courses for 49 euros. After all, it's cheap at Lidl, too.

 

Source:  https://www.wuv.de/agenturen/agenturen_der_extraklasse_ingo_in_stockholm