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Caffeine-infused salad dressing, colour-coded beer and LSD (Life Sustaining Drink) are just a few of the new product ideas that didn't quite make it to the final stages of development at BBDO Toronto's first-ever Brand Camp.
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Inspired by research done last year by our sister agency in Berlin, Brand Camp was an effort to understand how urban people in their twenties think and feel about snack food. We took 20 people away from their normal lives, placed them in our special food/creativity environment, denied them contact with the outside world and cracked the whip for a whole weekend. It was good.
Why urbanites in their twenties? They're the snack food pioneers-what Toronto's bike couriers and film students are eating right now will be eaten at snowmobile rallies in Kapuskasing, Goose Bay, Prince Rupert and Markham next year or the year after.
So why snack food? Well, it worked for Berlin, it made sense for our clients and it's a lot easier to design a new snack food or drink than a new financial instrument or powertrain warranty. Not that we couldn't do those later if we wanted-it's a flexible concept.
Recruitment for Brand Camp was complex. We wanted city-dwellers in their early to mid-twenties, but the shopping list was more specific than just that: we wanted creative, confident, photogenic people from a variety of backgrounds, people who felt strongly about food, and not burntout focus group junkies. We wanted rookies-people who had never seen foamcore before. We ended up with a candy store clerk, a landscaper, a sidewalk artist, a drummer, a teacher, an actor, some people who work in financial services, some people who build displays at The Bay and an assortment of students.
The planning for Brand Camp involved people from almost every part of the...