AN EXPERIENCED OUTDOOR BRAND FACING A CLIFF
When you’re the original, you’re a whisker away from being old. Mountain House, established in 1969, is the freeze-dried camping food leader. But just as the outdoor movement exploded during the pandemic with a flood of new, younger, less-tenured adventurers entering the market, supply disruptions hit — and competitors started to quickly steal share.
The Mountain House brand had little relevance among these youngsters, being perceived as “space food” — a product more geared to accompany moon missions (which it has, by the way) than everyday outdoor adventures. Compounding the situation, the brand existed in an outdoor marketing world filled with functional benefits and cliché aspirational imagery like hikers on a summit, friends enjoying a sunset and other generic outdoorsy-ness.
Mountain House needed to stave off the hungry competition and reinforce its position as the #1 freeze-dried food brand.
BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH MOUNTAIN HOUSE
For our younger outdoor adventurers, nostalgia provides a sense of comfort in an increasingly chaotic world of climate change, social media idealization, the before and after marked by the pandemic, and the belief that their parents’ lives were better. Zs will latch on to almost any era that offers a reprieve from the heaviness of the now. If time travel became possible, twice as many people would choose to go backwards to the past instead of forward to the future.
Mountain House is the original freeze-dried camping food and uniquely had the right to lean into its OG credentials. We looked back to the core equities from the brand’s heritage to tap into this audience’s thirst for the past — introducing "Adventure Made Delicious" to dispel “space food” perceptions while having a lot of fun, too.
We harkened back to yesteryear and an idealized version of the American outdoors, borrowing the visual language of Daniel Boone and Grizzly Adams in an attempt to put the fun back in the category — creating an earworm of a melody about our tasty product portfolio in resplendent vintage glory. Every CPG brand needs to drive recognition at shelf — so we made light of this reality, centering around nostalgic singalongs starring the products themselves, and evoking the brand’s late ‘60s origins with a cheeky voice that connects with nature in a fresh, fun way.
"Adventure Made Delicious" celebrated Mountain House's heritage with content that accomplished a rate feat — feeling like it was made long before modern technology. Research showed that our young campers saw social platforms as their "door to the outdoors," and this was the perfect content to serve up.
A CAMPAIGN THAT PUTS THE CAMP BACK IN CAMPING
"Adventure Made Delicious" had to communicate Mountain House as the best tasting without being so serious about it. (The competition was doing enough of that.) Our campaign put the '60s camp back in camping, calling back to the simpler times and comforting meals we all crave.
Our creative idea was to (re)introduce the brand with content inspired by adventure TV shows from the era of the brand’s founding — Grizzly Adams and Daniel Boone. We mined these shows for nostalgic inspiration. We hired Sarofsky, a famed title company best known for its numerous Netflix opening sequences and Marvel movie credits, to develop our own opening credits ripped right out of the late '60s, complete with painterly scenes and campy singalongs. But the stars of our video were the products themselves, spotlighting their warmth and deliciousness. Then we partnered with Future Perfect to take our lyrics and create an original earworm of a down-home ditty. A chorus of quirky voices led a catchy tune of cheerfully spun rhymes about the product benefits. (We’re sorry if it gets stuck in your head.)
MAKING MOUNTAIN HOUSE'S ADVENTURE MORE DELICIOUS
The “Adventure Made Delicious” campaign spread across social — shedding perceptions of Mountain House's product as “space food” and driving record-breaking site traffic, while spurring new campers to consider Mountain House. But was it all worth it? Did the brand protect its freeze-dried food leader status by lighting up the social scene in singalong style? As they say, the proof is in the freeze-dried pudding:
- 112% online sales
- 14% purchase consideration
- 7% favorability lift
