Driscoll's Sweet Taste of Success

The berry giant has success with in-house campaign

One of the industry trends that we at The One Club have noticed over the past few years is a move for brands to take some of their creative duties in-house, with some surprisingly effective results. Earlier this year, Driscoll’s (yes, the berry company) released a six-part miniseries to pull back the curtain on their supply chain process and share with their consumers where their berries actually come from. It was a move that earned them over 125 million impressions and 6 million views on YouTube.

We chatted with Diane Scalisi, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, and Ashley Enos, Digital Marketing Specialist, about Driscoll's foray into in-house advertising and branded entertainment.

How did the idea of a branded series of videos about the growers come about?

Our consumers have a strong interest in how fresh food is grown and brought to market. While Driscoll’s is a trusted consumer brand known for consistent quality, few consumers are familiar with the art and science of growing great-tasting berries. "Pursuit of Flavor" marks the company’s first ever behind-the-scenes look at how we pursue flavor differentiation.

Who were you trying to target with the Pursuit of Flavor videos?

Our target audience for the miniseries is millennials who care about the authenticity, flavor, and history of the food and beverage brands they consume. This is an audience that’s digitally forward and comfortable with social media – and one that can sniff out phoniness a mile away. So we knew that in order to be credible with Millennial consumers, we had to strike the right tone: approachable and genuine, with a mix of seriousness and light-heartedness – all without coming across as overly dramatic or silly.

Do you have an internal creative team that produced these videos, or did you work with an agency?

As we produced "Pursuit of Flavor" on a shoestring budget, the work was very much a collaboration between our internal team managing the story and our film production agency Hand Crank Films, who directed and produced the miniseries.

A million YouTube views on each video is huge! How did they catch on?

In addition to YouTube marketing, the miniseries received hundreds of thousands of earned views across YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our website. A big part of the organic success of the miniseries can be attributed to how it was received internally by our own employee base as well as by our retail and food service customers who shared the miniseries with their own networks. This was the first time in Driscoll’s 100+ year history in which we profiled family members and employees behind-the-scenes for an external audience, and the resulting internal pride and shares that the miniseries generated were a testament to how the work rang true and credible.