Overview

German retailer Lidl opened its first stores in the US in 2017 and faces a familiar challenge, while people recognized the name, they didn’t know the brand. 

In a fiercely competitive grocery market, Lidl needed more than awareness, it needed cultural relevance. 

One thing that already had Americans hooked was the smell of Lidl’s bakery. Specifically, the warm, buttery aroma of freshly baked croissants. It was a sensory moment customers loved and talked about, giving them a strong emotional connection to the brand. 

So instead of explaining what made Lidl special, we would let culture do the work. We took the most iconic in-store experience and turned it into something no one expected, a luxury fragrance inspired by breakfast. 

Introducing Eau de Croissant. 

The fragrance no one asked for. The moment everyone loved. 

Target Audience and Objectives 

Our target audience was Gen Z and Millennial young shoppers and parent shoppers, and we planned to target them with a social-first campaign that taps into humor, novelty and cultural moments.

Our brief was to drive awareness and talkability of Lidl in the US, with a particular focus on reach, engagements and engagement rate.

Insight 

What if we bottled the one thing people already loved? 

Customers in the US might not know everything about Lidl, but they felt it the moment they walked past the bakery. That smell was emotional, familiar and instantly recognizable. 

So instead of creating another grocery campaign, we asked ourselves: 
What happens when you take a genuine consumer truth and push it to its most playful, absurd extreme? 

The answer? A croissant-inspired fragrance that felt equal parts luxury, ridiculous and utterly crumb-believable. 

Challenges 

– Breaking through a crowded US grocery landscape 
– Shifting brand perception without relying on traditional advertising
– Making a parody feel premium, not gimmicky 
– Creating something funny enough to share, but crafted enough to admire 

Creative Execution 

This campaign was designed for social-native culture, not traditional advertising, where craft earns credibility and humor earns attention. 

At the heart of the idea was Eau de Croissant, a fully realized fragrance product, treated with the seriousness of luxury and the wink of parody. 

The Perfume 
To ensure the idea landed as premium rather than gimmick, we partnered with Sarah McCartney, widely known as the ‘Fairy Godmother of UK Perfumery’, alongside her scent dream team. 

Together, they developed a scent that authentically captured the buttery, fresh-baked aroma of a Lidl croissant, while remaining surprisingly wearable. 

The bottle itself became a cultural artefact. Designed and produced by Plunge Creations (known for their work on The Masked Singer and Spitting Image), the croissant-shaped bottle was crafted using brown-tinted resin to perfectly mirror the golden tones of a freshly baked pastry, housing 30ml of fragrance inside. The result was unmistakably croissant, undeniably premium. 

The Rollout 
The campaign rollout was structured to build and maintain momentum and community interaction rather than just culminate in one spike of activity. The activation was carefully planned to drive intrigue and anticipation during the tease phase, building to launch and beyond.  

Tease
Short, intriguing clips cut from the 3D asset, revealing just enough to spark curiosity.

Launch
We followed the teasers with a 30 second 3D reveal delivering the high impact, scroll-stopping moment that confirmed this wasn’t a joke, but a fully baked idea.  

Sustain Assets  
Audiences didn’t just watch, they smelled something amazing and joined in from across the globe, turning a US grocery brand into a worldwide talking point. 

– Comments flooded in as soon as we went live: “I NEED THIS”, “TAKE MY MONEY”, “WHY IS THIS REAL?” 
– Stitches and duets amplified the joke across platforms.
– An exclusive giveaway of 100 bottles created a direct touchpoint with fans, driving amplification through word of mouth.

In just the first week alone, Lidl saw a +18% uplift in Instagram followers and 200k organic engagements on the Lidl Instagram account. 

Originally planned as a US activation, once it began gaining traction, Lidl’s global team decided to roll it out to other markets around the world. 

The moment peaked when Eau de Croissant crossed into mainstream culture, earning global press coverage and a mention on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

Outcomes

Eau de Croissant didn’t just launch, it exploded with all its flaky golden goodness. 

Throughout the campaign, we leaned into humor, craft and sensory storytelling, allowing organic engagement, comments, stitches and duets to carry the idea far beyond Lidl’s owned channels. 

When a croissant-inspired fragrance spills over into earned media and even lands on late-night TV, you know you’ve not only baked something special you’ve landed the ultimate water cooler moment. 

The campaign repositioned Lidl US as a brand that gets culture, and created a moment so iconic it’s heading to the Museum of Food and Drink in New York. That’s a cultural moment no one saw coming. 

Compared to benchmarks for the previous two months, the results were off the scale: 
– Reach: +5,055% 
– Engagements: +11,710%
– Engagement Rate: +646% 

And continued to cook up a storm: 
– 8.3M organic reach on Lidl’s Instagram 
– +18% uplift in Instagram followers  
– +200k organic engagements on Lidl’s Instagram
– Average ER: 8.04% | Completion Rate: 39.62%  
– +1 billion impressions across 287 pieces of earned media coverage landing top lifestyle and beauty publications, including Food & Wine, Delish, Bustle, Yahoo, People, TrendHunter.  
– +10 global markets amplifying the idea on their own socials Not bad for a fragrance inspired by breakfast. 


Not bad for a fragrance inspired by breakfast. 

Here’s what our client had to say: 
“Eau de Croissant campaign set the new standard for talkability in Lidl US. The collaboration between organic social, paid media and PR pushed the campaign beyond our social platform and in front of the world. We honestly have never seen anything like it at Lidl US. It was incredible to see how fast it spread organically through UGC content on TikTok and IG from creators around the world and then to be featured on the Colbert Show. The impact of the campaign was felt across all the Lidl countries when their followers started asking them for Eau de Croissant. Additionally, the campaign has made an impact internally on how we think about talkability and how we can continue to make Lidl US something to talk about.”

Lauren Jackson, Marketing Manager – Media Strategy, Lidl US