The Challenge

New York Bakery Co. are the market leader in bagels, and had very clear business objectives to stay on top and grow. However, in an ever changing environment there were challenges that might threaten their ambition:

• Unscrupulous competitor that can shout louder than us.
• Own label in supermarkets stealing our USP (and customers).
• A cost of living crisis threatening named brands who don’t deliver.

In this context, we wanted to shift the perceived role of NYBCo. bagels, from being an occasional weekend brunch option, to a weekday family breakfast in a way that no one else could match.

The Insight

Our insight came out of our extensive breakfast research, social listening, desk research and ethnographic research that put us in the homes of our families week day breakfasts.

We found that parents need bold breakfasts that can keep up with their big characters, and as a brand born within the chaos of the big city and a product that delivers a much bigger breakfast, we felt as though NYBCo. was perfectly placed to take on toast and position its bagels as the better weekday breakfast option.

The Idea

The Toast Of New York

New York Bakery Co. bagels are literally bigger than our frugal British breakfast staple, toast. So, to make the brand synonymous with the weekday breakfast occasion and land their ample size, we thought we would take on toast as the better, bolder breakfast.

We built up to the campaign with the teaser pre-campaign launch of ‘The British Toast Association’ which had its own slightly unremarkable billboard, website and Instagram account.

Two weeks later, we revealed The Toast of New York through a hero film that then was supported across 3D special build OOH and one of the first ever anamorphic 3D ads running on TfL’s underground. The campaign then was supported with TV, national radio and BVOD.