THE BOOK OF CAKE

TitleTHE BOOK OF CAKE
BrandTHE HALLWAY
Product / ServiceFULL SERVICE CREATIVE AGENCY
CategoryB01. Corporate Image & Information
EntrantTHE HALLWAY Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company THE HALLWAY Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Advertising Agency THE HALLWAY Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Simon Lee The Hallway Executive Creative Director
Dave Lidster The Hallway Illustrator/Head Of Art
Francis Loh The Hallway Illustrator/Head Of Design
Ilya Aronovich The Hallway Illustrator/Designer
Dylan Soopramania The Hallway Illustrator/Art Director
Josh Aitken The Hallway Illustrator/Senior Copywriter
Clara Vincent The Hallway Illustrator/Planner
Holly Mooney The Hallway Illustrator/Designer
Samantha Teoh The Hallway Illustrator/Project Director
Paul Battye The Hallway Illustrator/Senior Art Director
Jomuel Mananquil The Hallway Illustrator/Digital Art Director
Emily Hahn The Hallway Illustrator/Senior Project Manager
Simon Lesch The Hallway Project Manager
Jules Hall The Hallway Managing Partner

The Brief

We’re an independent advertising agency in the very competitive Australian market. Our objective was simple: start conversations with marketing directors and win new business. Marketing directors are very busy people with no shortage of agencies touting for their business. We knew that a typical “why us?” new-business mailer telling them why they should work with us would get lost in the sea of agency propaganda. We opted instead to demonstrate our creativity, strategic ability and importantly, our culture by creating something marketing directors could actually enjoy. And we extended a mouth watering invitation – after all, who doesn’t like cake?!

Creative Execution

The Book of Cake succeeds because it’s an honest and genuine expression of the creativity, imagination, sense of humour and passion of the great bunch of people who work at our agency. And ultimately, that’s what great clients want – to work with great people.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We created “The Book of Cake” – a book inspired by a pillar of our agency culture: “Cake Club”. Every Monday a different member of the agency bakes a cake for the whole team. In a strategic and creative twist, the baker must offer a strategic rationale that connects their cake to 1950s French film director Jacques Tati. So to woo prospective clients, we compiled our cake recipes and Tati-inspired rationales into a book, adorned it with awesome illustrations by a variety of staff members, then sent it to marketing directors with an invitation to come and join us for cake.

Results

The Book of Cake has already proved to be our most successful new business tool ever: We first sent it out in late 2013 and have already seen a 70% increase in new business meetings in the first three months of 2014. We have won four new clients, two without having to pitch. The corresponding revenue sees The Book of Cake already delivering 13:1 ROI. At the time of writing, a leading Australian curator is exhibiting The Book of Cake and will auction art from The Book of Cake to raise money for charity.