Title	SUPER MARC
Brand	EDEKA
Product/Service	PRODUCT VARIETY
Category	B06. Innovative Use of Influencers
Entrant	EDEKA ZENTRALE AG & CO. KG Hamburg, GERMANY
Idea Creation	JUNG VON MATT Hamburg, GERMANY
Production	JUNG VON MATT Hamburg, GERMANY
Production 2	WHITE HORSE MUSIC Hamburg, GERMANY
Production 3	ZAUBERBERG PRODUCTIONS GMBH Berlin, GERMANY

Name	Company	Position
Jens Pfau	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Managing Creative Director
Anna Lichnog	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Executive Creative Director
Sebastian Schnell	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Creative Director/Art
Anna Cringle	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Art Director
Simon Schaffhöfer	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Copywriter
Lennart Schmidt	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Junior Art Director
Ieva Povilauskaite	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Intern
Charlotte Whalen	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Intern
David Voss	Jung von Matt AG	Senior Producer
Florian Laufenberg	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Client Service Director
Simon Zinserling	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Account Director
Dorith Stiefelhagen	Jung von Matt NEXT ALSTER	Projekt Manager
Nadin Lefkeli	White Horse Music	Managing Director
Shari Hosseini	White Horse Music	Creative Music Strategist
Jonas Schroeter	White Horse Music	Student Assistant/Music
Marc Rebillet	Marc Rebillet	Artist

Why is this work relevant for PR?

For years, EDEKA communicated „variety“ as their key brand message. But there was one growing target group, that EDEKA left out so far: The young, social media community on TikTok, Reddit and Instagram. A sphere, that creates its own content and entertainment, and rejects traditional advertising tropes. That’s why we publicly teamed up with artist Marc Rebillet to communicate EDEKAs variety in an authentic manner. Through Marc’s honest interaction with the online community, as well as rival supermarkets, we created an organic buzz on every major social media platform, that turned our target group into a fanbase.

Background

With over 60,000 products, EDEKA is Germany’s largest and most diverse supermarket, in which no wishes remain unfulfilled. The selection is outstanding – especially when it comes to specialties and products for different eating styles. But people seem to forget that – and buy the same things over and over again. The brief: to remind Germany of the sheer diversity of EDEKA, with a creative implementation that sticks in the mind and lets the whole nation talk about it. Our objective: To transcend traditional pre-roll advertising, by creating an authentic experience, that captures the feel and humor of an ad-sceptical community.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We wanted to make people FEEL the endless variety they can find at EDEKA by giving it a sound. In order to transforming products into music. We wired up an entire supermarket into a giant synthesizer – and had it played by a crazy musician, who could even play the weirdest fruits and vegetables: Internets home-grown talent Marc Rebillet.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

We knew that, in order to convince the ad-sceptical online community, authenticity was key. That’s why we did’t treat Marc Rebillet like a testimonial, but a creative partner. Working closely together on composition, look and feel, we created an authentic film, that not only showcases EDKEAs variety, but appreciates Marc’s character and art, as well as his fanbase. By jokingly implementing an especially weird German sour cream called „Schmand“, we wanted to improve the target group’s identification, giving them a strong reason to share and meme the sequence. In releasing the music video not just on corporate accounts, but Marcs own profiles, we wanted to seed it as organic as possible – spending little to none media costs. Marc was given complete freedom to interact with the online community and market competitors – creating an authentic communication experience.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We presented the idea to Marc Rebillet, knowing that he was the only person, that fitted our project both musically and charismatically. Over the next weeks, we composed an original song and worked on a visual concept.
After that, we wired up an entire supermarket for shooting. On set, Marc uploaded a photo of his #Supermarc Bathrobe – leaving people speculating about what Marc was doing in Germany. A few days before release, we published a short teaser of him playing the EDEKA theme on products. #Supermarc was released on June 30 on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, on both corporate channels and Marc’s personal accounts. For days, Marc interacted with the community, even telling competitor LIDL to „fuck“ themselves, and announcing the „great German grocery war of 2021“.

List the results (30% of vote)

We received close to 20M views on every major social media network – along 2M new followers on TikTok. „#EDEKA” trended #1 on Twitter, „Schmand“ on #4. We organically made it into various subreddits such as r/funny, r/de and r/askagerman, with over 18.000 Likes on r/videos. The community produced memes, reaction videos, gifs and Spreadshirt templates, along with flooding our competitors with „Schmand“-Jokes. Celebrities such as Regie Watts, Fulda Borg, Daniel Thrasher, Til Schweiger and Jan Böhmermann shared our spot, along with international newspapers. Marcs engagement with fans and competitors led to even more schadenfreude and interaction, with people still commenting „Schmand“-related posts online months later.