For its latest ad campaign, French grocery chain Grand Frais made an unconventional move to increase brand engagement: it created a video ad for other grocery chains.
“Swing the Copycat”
Titled “Swing the Copycat,” Grand Frais’ latest ad highlights a bizarre story about its first TV advertisement. Apparently, just a few weeks after the French outlet released the ad in May of 2022, Monoprix, a grocery outlet in the Middle East, released a nearly identical TV ad promoting its stores in Qatar. In its new ad, Grand Frais displays its May 2022 ad side-by-side with Monoprix’s ad, showing how the competitor used the exact same storyline and camera angles as it did, right down to the ridiculous pineapple shot.
But the team at Grand Frais wasn’t offended by the mimicry – they were flattered. Inspired by the care that Monoprix took to recreate its advertisement, Grand Frais teamed up with ad agency Rosa Paris to release a “white label” version of its original ad that could be used by any competitor. First, it updated all the spaces where its logo was to simply say: “Your logo here.” Then, the company shared the ad on social media, with the caption:
“If you like our ad as much as Monoprix, don’t reshoot, make your version here 😏.”
So far, 23 different companies have utilized the white label ad, increasing Grand Frais’ original campaign reach from 5 million hits to 25 million. And the best part? It didn’t cost them anything.