ARCHIVELand O'Frost Makes Sliced Meats the Star of Its First National Campaign
Land O'Frost launched its first-ever integrated national advertising campaign in May 2018, created by Chicago-based agency MERGE, featuring actors in sandwich ingredient costumes debating the merits of Premium Sliced Meats inside a fictional boardroom setting across 15-second and 30-second television spots.
The campaign, titled "Sandwich Healthy, Sandwich Conference Call," marked a significant milestone for the brand. As reported by Reel Chicago, the effort went live during the week of May 14, 2018, airing across network television, cable, and syndicated programming throughout the United States. The projected reach, as noted by Little Black Book, was approximately 91% of U.S. households — an ambitious opening statement for a brand entering national broadcast advertising for the first time.
The creative platform introduced what the brand and agency referred to as the "Sandwich Boardroom" — a fictional corporate world populated by personified sandwich ingredients, each representing a specific product claim. Land O'Frost Premium Sliced Meats carries product claims including no by-products and no added hormones, and the campaign was engineered to make those functional differentiators emotionally accessible and memorable rather than merely informational. According to landofrost.com, this 2018 effort was explicitly described as the brand's first-ever integrated national advertising campaign, making it both a product launch platform and a brand-building exercise simultaneously.
The campaign targeted budget-conscious mothers and family decision-makers across the United States — a demographic central to the sliced meats and lunchmeat category. Production was handled by Quriosity, with media planning and buying managed by Merkley+Partners and public relations led by FleishmanHillard, as documented by provisioneronline.com. The Clapboard Score for this campaign stands at 66 out of 100, reflecting a competent and strategically coherent debut that balances category-appropriate humour with genuine product communication.
Land O'Frost entered national advertising inside one of the most competitive refrigerated categories in American retail. The U.S. lunchmeat industry was valued at approximately nine billion dollars in 2018, with approximately five billion dollars attributed to deli departments alone, according to refrigeratedfrozenfood.com. That scale defined both the opportunity and the challenge: the category was large enough to reward a major campaign investment but crowded enough to make differentiation essential.
The brand's primary competitors in the United States included Oscar Mayer, long established as the dominant lunchmeat brand through decades of national advertising, and Hillshire Farm, which has similarly built equity through consistent above-the-line investment. Against these entrenched players, Land O'Frost had no existing national creative platform to leverage. MERGE's strategic response was to sidestep direct comparison advertising entirely and instead construct a proprietary world — the Sandwich Boardroom — that gave the brand a recognisable creative identity from its very first national impression.
Kevin Houlihan, President and Chief Creative Officer at MERGE, articulated the strategic stakes clearly. As quoted by lbbonline.com, Houlihan stated: "This is Land O'Frost Premium's introduction, so it was critical that the creative achieve more than typical CPG goals, like recall and purchase intent." That framing reveals an ambition beyond standard fast-moving consumer goods metrics — the campaign was designed to generate cultural conversation, not just shelf movement. Houlihan also noted, as reported by provisioneronline.com, "Understanding this was the company's first national campaign, we wanted to develop advertising that would be talked about."
Targeting budget-conscious mothers and family decision-makers in the United States placed the campaign within a well-mapped but highly competitive consumer segment. The humour-led approach was a calculated choice to cut through the functional messaging that dominates food advertising, using the absurdity of anthropomorphised sandwich ingredients to make product claims — no by-products, no added hormones — feel distinctive rather than defensive.
Ben Weinstein directed the "Sandwich Healthy, Sandwich Conference Call" campaign for Land O'Frost. Weinstein worked through production company Quriosity, with the creative originating from MERGE and Kevin Houlihan serving as President and Chief Creative Officer, as documented by reelchicago.com and lbbonline.com.
The creative execution rests on a single, committed conceit: a corporate boardroom populated entirely by actors costumed as sandwich ingredients. The two spots — a 15-second and a 30-second version — place these characters in recognisably mundane workplace scenarios, with the conference call format providing the structural frame for "Sandwich Conference Call" and a health-oriented discussion anchoring "Sandwich Healthy." The comedy derives not from the absurdity being acknowledged but from the characters treating their boardroom proceedings with complete seriousness, a tonal choice that keeps the humour grounded and the product messaging legible.
Houlihan described the intent behind the character approach in remarks reported by lbbonline.com: "The boardroom characters bring the brand to life and make it meaningful to people." That statement points to a deliberate craft decision — the characters are not simply visual gags but functional brand ambassadors, each designed to embody a specific aspect of the Premium Sliced Meats proposition. The casting of actors capable of sustaining deadpan performance within elaborate costumes was essential to the execution landing as intended rather than collapsing into broad slapstick.
The production format — two spots of different lengths designed for network television, cable, and syndicated programming across the United States — indicates a media-led production discipline. The 15-second cut required the Sandwich Boardroom world to be established, the product claim to be communicated, and the comedic register to be confirmed within a window that many food brands struggle to use effectively. As noted in coverage by reelchicago.com, journalist Colin Costello characterised the campaign's debut in May 2018 with positive sentiment, suggesting the execution achieved its tonal objectives as observed by the trade press.
ARCHIVENo independently verified post-campaign performance data for "Sandwich Healthy, Sandwich Conference Call" is publicly available in terms of sales lift, brand awareness shift, or purchase intent movement. No verified awards data has been documented for this campaign across major industry award schemes.
What the public record does confirm is the campaign's structural ambition. A projected reach of approximately 91% of U.S. households, as reported by lbbonline.com, places this debut in a tier of media investment that most challenger food brands do not attempt for an inaugural national campaign. The decision to run both 15-second and 30-second formats across network television, cable, and syndication — as documented by reelchicago.com — reflects a media strategy built for frequency as much as reach, which is consistent with the objective of embedding a new brand world into consumer consciousness.
The campaign's structural effectiveness can be assessed on two dimensions. First, it successfully created a proprietary creative asset — the Sandwich Boardroom — that gave Land O'Frost a recognisable identity independent of product shots or price-led messaging. Second, the humour-forward approach addressed a real category problem: functional claims such as no by-products and no added hormones are credible but inherently low-engagement. By routing those claims through comedy and character, MERGE constructed a format where the product information is absorbed as a byproduct of entertainment rather than presented as a reason-to-believe. According to landofrost.com, the 2018 campaign is documented as the brand's first-ever integrated national advertising effort, a designation that underscores its foundational role in Land O'Frost's broader marketing architecture.
"Sandwich Healthy, Sandwich Conference Call" is Land O'Frost's first-ever national advertising campaign, created by MERGE and launched in May 2018 in the United States. It features actors in sandwich ingredient costumes inside a fictional boardroom, promoting Premium Sliced Meats with claims of no by-products and no added hormones across 15-second and 30-second television spots.
MERGE created the campaign, with Kevin Houlihan serving as President and Chief Creative Officer. Director Ben Weinstein led production through Quriosity. Merkley+Partners handled media, and FleishmanHillard managed public relations, as documented by provisioneronline.com. The campaign launched during the week of May 14, 2018, across U.S. network television, cable, and syndicated programming.
The campaign promotes Land O'Frost Premium Sliced Meats. The product carries claims of containing no by-products and no added hormones. These functional differentiators are communicated through the comedic Sandwich Boardroom characters rather than through direct product demonstration, making the 2018 campaign notable for its entertainment-led approach to food advertising in the United States.
The campaign projected a reach of approximately 91% of U.S. households, as reported by lbbonline.com. It aired across network television, cable, and syndicated programming starting the week of May 14, 2018. This scale of reach was significant for a brand launching its first integrated national advertising effort in the competitive U.S. lunchmeat market.
The Clapboard Score for "Sandwich Healthy, Sandwich Conference Call" is 66 out of 100. This score reflects a strategically coherent debut that balances category-appropriate humour with genuine product communication. The campaign earns credit for its proprietary creative world and ambitious national media reach, though no independently verified sales or awareness data is publicly available.
Ben Weinstein directed the Land O'Frost campaign through production company Quriosity. The campaign comprised 15-second and 30-second spots featuring actors in sandwich ingredient costumes. As reported by reelchicago.com, journalist Colin Costello covered the campaign's May 2018 launch with positive sentiment, marking it as a notable debut in U.S. food advertising that year.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
