Country Crock wanted to spread brand loyalty, build up brand awareness and convince new users to try out its products. Story was tasked to create a positive master-brand experience that inspired the audience to come together as a family––over the dinner table and the campfire––and connect with other consumers online to share recipes and swap tips.

The mission: lend a hand to communities in need. Country Crock asked consumers to come up with stories of when they’ve helped out others. For each story shared online, Country Crock donated a meal to a down-and-out family through the America's Second Harvest program. We helped out too, driving traffic to the cause-based site through a year-long targeted eCRM program and rich-media banners.

In order to generate interest in Country Crock’s new spread––which boasts a healthy supplement of Calcium plus Vitamin D––we needed to educate and inform the audience without making them feel like, well, boneheads. Curiosity came by way of a short, punchy and engaging quiz on calcium and a contest prize that couldn’t be refused: a 6-day, 5-night trip to Yellowstone. The numbers don’t lie: in the campaign’s first month (March of ’09) the calcium sweeps boosted newsletter registrations by a resounding 1,008% and recipes by 273%.

Country Crock is all about family bonding. So when pressed to develop a fun, interactive way to instill the company ethos, we developed Camp Country Crock––a one-stop shop for families looking to engage in some quality time. And engage they did––not only with each other, but with the brand’s wealth of activity suggestions, online recipes and other original content. New badges, released weekly alongside a strong email campaign and sweepstakes, kept campers coming back for more. The result? An astonishingly lower bounce rate (4%, vs. a 45% benchmark), an open rate 84% higher than the ’09 average, and one overwhelmingly happy group of campers. By bringing the campground to the backyard, we brought Country Crock to the foreground.