The Cardboard Cake
Wholegreen Bakery
Design
Advertising
Media
Coeliac disease affects over 1 in 70 Australians (>380,000) with accelerating rates of diagnosis every year.
Getting diagnosed with this incurable autoimmune condition is stressful and unpleasant, especially the prospect of having to eat gluten-free food the rest of your life - because the general perception is that means a life sentence of replacing the food you love with bland and tasteless alternatives. Especially with the reputation that “gluten-free food tastes like cardboard.”
In this case, perception is not reality; Australia’s Wholegreen Bakery has been making delicious gluten-free food for more than a decade. It’s just that most Australians still don’t know this is possible.
Myth-busting
With Coeliac Awareness Week looming, in partnership with Wholegreen Bakery and Coeliac Australia, we decided it was time to dispel the “Gluten-free food tastes like cardboard” myth once and for all - by creating a cake that looks like cardboard, but tastes like… delicious cake.
Rethinking baking
No one had ever made a Cardboard Cake before, so bringing our idea to the bakery shelves required months of R&D. We had to lean into industrial design, creating a bespoke baking tray to make pastry look like corrugated cardboard and trod a delicate tightrope, balancing cardboard appearance with delicious taste.
Cultural context
We launched the cake during Australia’s 2024 Coeliac Awareness Week with a media event and launch film, and we sent Cardboard Cakes to celebrity chefs and foodie influencers.
The campaign was lauded globally with reach nearly the size of Australia’s population. The launch film was so popular it was viewed over 6 million times from a single post on Urban List Sydney and is now their most viewed social post ever.
Celebrity chef duo Colin Fassnidge and Manu Feildel from ‘My Kitchen Rules’ both scored the cake a 10 and couldn’t believe their taste buds. Adding to the hype, Natalie Barr (Sunrise) and Kylie Gillies (The Morning Show) from Seven Network both raved about the cake, causing social media to erupt with people eating the cake and doing their own complimentary reviews.
Results
$2 million earned media value
+24% sales increase
238% ROI
