Cannes Lions: Olaf van Gerwen of Chuck Studios on Why Food Advertising Sells the Category, Not the Brand
Business of MarketingShow Notes
What makes a burger look like your burger? Or a beer look like your beer? For Olaf van Gerwen, Founder & Global Creative Director of Chuck Studios, that question gets to the heart of a problem facing some of the world’s biggest food and drink brands: too much advertising makes the category look good, while doing very little to make the brand distinctive. Recorded at Cannes Lions, Olaf joins John Horsley to talk about the craft and science of building brands through food. They explore why years of performance marketing have pulled attention away from long-term brand building, why consistency beats constantly reinventing the campaign, and how brands can develop a distinctive “culinary identity” in much the same way they build a visual or sonic identity. Olaf also shares the thinking behind Chuck Studios’ work with brands including McDonald’s, KFC and Lipton, why subtle brand cues can become incredibly powerful over time, and why his decision to specialise completely in food and drink transformed his own career. His advice for anyone coming into the industry is equally clear: find the thing you want to be known for, then go deep. A conversation about creativity, distinctiveness, specialism and what it really takes to build a brand people remember.
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