Dolmio: Naked Pasta

Dolmio has been a household pasta sauce brand in the UK since the late 1980s. However, in recent years, the pasta sauce category has faced increased pressure from private labels and intensified competitor activity, posing new challenges for the brand. With this in mind, Dolmio wanted to remind everyone (in the most distinctive way possible) of its much-loved, infallible taste. World Pasta Day on October 25th was the perfect moment to do so (yes, it’s an actual calendar event).

So, how do you remind everyone that your pasta sauce is indispensable? You hire a nude photographer! Our concept & truth was simple: Pasta is Naked Without Sauce. Instead of a conventional food photographer, we partnered with a famous fine art & body photographer known for her evocative portraiture - Sophie Harris Taylor - to capture real pasta like nude body parts. From lasagne sheets to tortellini and ravioli, each OOH was crafted to make people do a double take from a distance, only to realize up close that our imagery was in fact pasta. A massive risk for any traditional food brand to take, but one that truly paid off. Using 100% real pasta, we used the power of craft, photography and humour to boldly stand out in a sea of outdoor ads.

Our campaign was a viral success on social media, well beyond the UK, with global coverage in major industry and consumer publications worldwide. As a hilariously unintended coincidence - some of our pasta imagery got censored on Google Image Results, LinkedIn and other platforms for being too risqué. Arguably, one could consider this as the internet technically agreeing with our campaign message, that pasta is indeed ‘naked’ without Dolmio.