Last year, for “Bratsgiving,” as Droga5 New York rebranded National Bratwurst Day (which falls on August 16), the agency wrote “the greatest love song ever written about sausage” in “The Ballad of Bratsgiving.” This year the agency created the holiday’s own version of Santa Claus: Carl, the Bratsgiver.
“We realized there wasn’t really a back story or lure to Bratsgiving so we thought it would be really fun this year to create that using the members as the people who make the story up,” Droga5 group creative director Scott Bell explained to Adweek.
So Droga5 New York invited Johnsonville employees to help dream up their own version of St. Nicholas, following in the “Made the Johnsonville Way” formula introduced this May. The character, as dreamed up by said employees and Droga5, lives in a cabin in the woods of Wisconsin, has a heart-shaped sausage tattoo, “looks like a bodybuilder after he’s eaten way too many brats,” and always sports a brat necklace. Think a more muscular Santa, decked out for the summer and with an affinity for beer and brats rather than milk and cookies, and you’ve got the idea.
Droga5 New York and Johnsonville employees flesh out the myth in an online ad that was released last week.
In addition to the online ad, the agency also created an illustrated children’s book for the character, The Legend of Carl the Great Bratsgiver, also available online. They then read the book aloud to a group of kids at a YMCA in Kansas City, followed by a brat cookout with Carl himself.
“Every year we want it to feel more and more like a real holiday,” Bell added. “When you see Carl the Great Bratsgiver out, it becomes a little more real just how Santa Claus becomes a little more real every time you see him out at a mall.”
Credits:
Client: Johnsonville
Campaign: Carl the Great Bratsgiver
Agency: Droga5 NY
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer
Group Creative Director: Scott Bell
Associate Creative Director: Chris Colliton
Associate Creative Director: Kevin Weir
Junior Copywriter: Gabe Sherman
Junior Art Director: Gage Young
Executive Design Director: Rob Trostle
Design Director: Rich Greco
Designer: Julia Gordon
Chief Creation Officer: SallyAnn Dale
Executive Producer: Scott Chinn
Associate Broadcast Producer: Jenna Allchin
Head of Interactive Production: Niklas Lindstrom
Executive Interactive Producer: Tasha Cronin
Associate Interactive Producer: Alyssa Cashman
Social Producer: Alice Tam
Head of Art Production: Cliff Lewis
Senior Print Producer: Rick Gutierrez
Junior Art Producer: Nichole Katsikas
Senior Retoucher: John Ciambriello
Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer
Group Strategy Director: Aaron Wiggan
Senior Strategist: Marc Iserlis
Group Communications Strategy Director: Brian Nguyen
Communications Strategist: Kevin Wilkerson
Data Strategy Director: Lily Ng
Group Account Director: Julia Albu
Account Director: Pat Rowley
Account Supervisor: Kate Tyler Monroe
Associate Account Manager: Camille CheeksLomax
Project Manager: Rayna Lucier
Client: Johnsonville
Group Marketing Director: Ryan Pociask
Integrated Marketing Director: Jamie Schmelzer
Creative Director, Brand Communications: Anthony Rammer
Senior Director of Marketing: Ron Schroder
PR and Social Media Manager: Stephanie Dlugopolski
Shopper Marketing Manager: Stephanie Plehn
Production Company: D5 Films
Director / DOP: Brian Lannin
Line Producer: Sara Vander Horn
Editorial: D5 Studios
Editor: Nick Ljubicich
Studio Coordinator: CJ Trahan
Post Production: D5 Studios
Sound: Sonic Union
Mixer: David Papa
Animator: Jeremy Johnstone
Illustrators: Marc Burckhardt, Dan Craig