Want to see where Waitrose gets it food from? Just go on YouTube and watch live footage of its partner farms—for an entire week. That's the interesting premise of adam&eveDDB and Manning Gottlieb OMD's unique new campaign for the U.K. grocery store chain.
The livestreaming started on Thursday and will continue for a full seven days. You can have a live look right now in the video below—although if it's after dark in England, you'll have to wait until sunrise. (They are taking overnight breaks, when you can't see anything anyway.)
The strategy is simple: Shoppers want proof of quality food, so why not use modern technology to give them a live look at it? Waitrose does have a good sourcing story to tell, too, having recently become the only supermarket able to guarantee that all the cows that provide its milk and cream have access to grazing.
A stream from the Waitrose Leckford Farm includes three camera angles—of beehives, rapeseed and panoramic views of the countryside. Other streams are coming from one of Waitrose's dairy farms near Newbury and one of its free-range hen farms near Marlborough. At the dairy farm, one of the cameras is a GoPro strapped to a cow, giving instant proof of just how free to graze the animals are.
The footage is being recorded, and some of it is being instantly turned into TV commercials that are airing the same day—which Waitrose says is the first time a U.K. food retailer has streamed same-day content in its broadcast advertising.
Here's a TV spot that was cut from today's footage:
Digital, out-of-home and print ads also tie into the concept.
Live footage of the farm is airing on digital boards at major train stations. The print work uses photos taken at real Waitrose farms within 24 hours of publication. And a digital banner will livestream footage into a YouTube masthead takeover this coming Monday.
Creatively, the livestreams are incredibly boring—but that's the whole point. You don't want too much going on at the farm that's growing your food anyway. And spending a few minutes with the stream is actually remarkably peaceful, and in a sense reassuring.
In all, the whole idea is clever, delightful and relevant.
It's so simple and straightforward that even the canned quotes are pleasantly unadorned. "The quality sourcing of Waitrose food speaks for itself," Tammy Einav, managing director at adam&eveDDB, says in a statement. "We wanted to let it do just that."
CREDITS
Project Title: "Spring"
Client: Waitrose
Senior Marketing Managr: Joanne Massey
Marketing Manager: Libby Langridge
Agency: adam&eveDDB
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest
Executive Creative Directors: Ben Tollett, Richard Brim
Copywriter: Miles Carter
Art Director: Sophie Knox
Agency Producer: Panos Louca
Agency Print Producer: Nicola Applegate
Agency Assistant Producer: Sion Prys
Planner: Dom Boyd
Managing Partner: Tammy Einav
Business Director: Victoria Day
Account Director: Joanne Murray
Account Manager: Abi Robinson
Account Executive: Alice Child
Media Agency: Manning Gottlieb OMD
Executive Director, Joint Head of Retail: Katherine Charalambous
Business Director: Kirpal Bharaj
Senior Planning Executive: Anneka Dew
Production Company: Stink
Print Retoucher: Stanleys
Print Topographer: Dan Forde
Executive Producer: Jon Chads
Producer: Simon Eakhurst
Director: Wilkins & Maguire
Cinematographers, Directors of Photography: Peter Alibone (TOPS/farm footage), Martin Hill (TAILS/food footage)
Editing Company: The Quarry
Editor: Peter Lambert
Postproduction: Unit
Post Producer Magda Krimitsou
Visual Effects Supervisor: Rob Ellis
Colorist: Scott Harris
Audio Post Production: Unit