Beef Farmers of Ontario

We made asking the butcher a cultural moment—transforming everyday meat counters into gateways to premium, local pride.

Ask Your Butcher… Anything

Client Category
Food & Beverage · CPG · Agriculture & Commodity Marketing

Services Provided
Brand Strategy · Campaign Creative · Digital Content · Influencer Marketing · Social Media · Retail Activation · Video Production · Media Strategy

Business Challenge

Ontario’s beef farmers were producing exceptional product — but their story was dying in silence. Research revealed a hidden behavioural crisis: nearly two-thirds of consumers stood silently at butcher counters, too intimidated to ask even the most basic questions.

The result?
Premium local beef was being treated like commodity meat.

In a category where conversation drives confidence — and confidence drives premium choice — consumer paralysis was costing Ontario Beef relevance at the exact moment of decision.

To reclaim the counter, we needed to dismantle the intimidation barrier and make curiosity feel not just acceptable, but celebrated.

Strategic Insight

The problem wasn’t knowledge.
It was fear.

Consumers wanted to learn — about cuts, cooking methods, origins, quality — but felt foolish asking questions they believed they “should already know.” The butcher counter had unintentionally become a fortress of expertise.

Our breakthrough:
If you make every question feel normal, even the ridiculous ones, you make all questions feel safe.

By shifting the butcher from intimidating expert to approachable guide, we could unlock conversation, confidence, and preference for Ontario Beef.

This insight hit the heart of our creative philosophy — making people care through Emotion, Relevance, and Difference .

Creative Solution

We launched a behaviour-changing platform built on one disarming invitation:

“Ask Your Butcher… Anything.”

Humorous. Human. Permission-giving.

We used absurd questions to make real questions feel effortless — dismantling the psychological barrier that kept shoppers silent and kept Ontario Beef invisible.

Permission-Giving Films

• Three 15-second spots (“Penguin,” “Hiccups,” “Which One”)
• Each featuring delightfully ridiculous questions
• Made butcher conversations feel normal, safe, and fun

Multi-Platform Humour Strategy

• YouTube, Meta, Pinterest
• Six-second teasers that captured attention fast in scroll environments
• Reinforced that any question is a good question

Authenticity Amplification

• Real butcher interviews across social
• Built trust and relatability
• Showed the humanity behind the counter

Point-of-Purchase Empowerment

• In-shop materials
• Counter signage
• Sampling events
• Turned every butcher counter into a conversation starter

This was more than an ad campaign — it was a cultural permission shift.

Results

📈 30% surge in butcher counter inquiries — behaviour change at point-of-sale
🥩 20% increase in specific requests for Ontario Beef
🎥 5M+ video views — driving widespread conversation
📰 Earned media coverage positioned Ontario Beef as the premium, trusted choice
💬 Consumer sentiment shifted — from intimidated silence to confident curiosity

Category Takeaway

Ontario Beef didn’t just boost sales — it rewrote the rules of meat-counter engagement.

By turning intimidated shoppers into confident questioners, the brand became the King of the Butcher Block, proving that the biggest competitor in commodity categories isn’t another product — it’s consumer hesitation.

The lesson for food & beverage marketers?

When you remove the emotional barriers to engagement, preference follows conversation.
Sometimes your most powerful differentiator isn’t the product itself, but the confidence you help create.

That’s how heroes become kings.