Make Sara Lee Deli Meats & Cheeses the Next Best Thing to Sliced Bread.

To capture the growing interest among shoppers for ‘fresh and premium’ solutions on the grocery store's perimeter, Sara Lee Deli meats and cheeses set out to establish their iconic brand among longtime deli department players such as Boar’s Head and Dietz & Watson. They turned to PGC Advertising in Dallas, a small packaged goods and promotions agency owned by Omnicom’s Diversified Agency Services group, known for work with meat brands like Jimmy Dean Foods and Bryan Foods.

As Management Supervisor at PGC, I led the client and agency teams in the strategic and creative development for all aspects of Sara Lee Deli brand marketing, including $16MM in national magazine and network television advertising, $7MM in national consumer promotion, new product introduction, consumer research, retailer-specific programs, and field sales support.

Execution of our new brand positioning work along with our integrated marketing plan resulted in +20% product authorizations, +11% pound volume growth, and a +19% increase in overall ACV in the first fiscal year.

Our Sara Lee Deli “Magic Sandwich” television spot won three TELLY Awards for the best overall television ad in the category, best use of animation, and best use of music. This advertising also set new benchmarks in copy-testing with the market research firm Millward Brown for the lunch meat category.

Our national holiday “entertaining insert” and print ad was featured on newsstands early in November with aspirational publications such as Real Simple and Food & Wine.

To keep the momentum going through the holiday season and leading up to Super Bowl parties, we negotiated a no-cost cross-promotion with Stone Cellars by Beringer Wines for January and February. The campaign shifted to news media outlets featuring Sara Lee’s tips on party trays while in grocery stores consumers could find special Sara Lee Deli savings adorning Stone Cellars by Beringer wine bottles along with incremental displays of wine strategically placed in the deli.

To seed the Sara Lee Deli brand in our shopper’s mind prior to the chaos of back-to-school shopping, we leveraged the little-known August holiday, National Deli Sandwich Month, to promote and incent shoppers to visit the deli and ask for Sara Lee.