Common Dairy
Reverse engineered parody
Let’s say someone wants to create a product. They will probably have some specific knowledge or interest in a certain industry or set of goods, and then go and make a better (or perceived better) version of that product. After, they conduct marketing activities to try to connect the product to their audience.
When it comes to viral or hype marketing, I found another approach to be very effective - and it’s doing things in reverse.
I prefer to research and look for current marketing opportunities in the cultural narrative first - whether internet trends, fashion trends, sports trends etc. - and then design a product from scratch around that narrative and audience. Product fit and positioning solved!
Common Dairy was a great example of this. A pun on the word “commentary”, the brand produced parody products and apparel centred around inside jokes in the Toronto hip-hop scene. In 2015, this involved the 75 year-old Twitter personality Councillor Norm Kelly and his unlikely affiliation with street culture and Drake.
When my parody T-shirt mockups of Norm Kelly and Drake’s OVO logo mashup went viral on Twitter, I discovered there was a huge demand for the shirts. I immediately started manufacturing them, launching a Shopify store and a social media account, as well as a partnership with Councillor Norm Kelly amongst other influencers in the campaign. In addition, we pledged to donate 20% of proceeds to Covenant House, a non-profit focusing on at risk and homeless youth.
The core brand values for Common Dairy’s products were that they were “every day commentary, for every day people” much like every day groceries, such as milk, produce and meats. The tagline: "Keep Fresh".
I took this metaphor literally and designed product packaging for the first product around this grocery theme, using butcher paper and a redesigned parody packing label.
The second product continued this theme. After extensive research of material dyes, we pioneered a new production method for laser cut parody rapper chains that were both scalable and durable. Keeping with the grocery theme, these were in vacuum-sealed shrink wrapped in food safe packaging.
The additional benefit of this unique approach was that it was impactful and viral itself: many customers commented on how much they liked the packaging, posting and having conversations about it on social media. Having multiple influencers in the media and celebrity fans provided a huge lift in driving organic sales for the brand.
Common Dairy and its products has been featured on Global TV, City TV, Toronto Life, Flow 93.5, BlogTO and Drake’s Instagram.
