The Brief

Most Four Square stores sit in the small towns New Zealanders flock to over summer: the holiday towns, the bach communities, the places that fill up between Christmas and Waitangi Day and empty out again once the good weather goes. Great for January, but it leaves a long, quiet stretch through winter when the baches sit empty and foot traffic on the main street drops away. Four Square came to us with a clear goal: get locals back through the doors over the colder months.

The Solve

There’s nothing more New Zealand winter than a hot toasted sandwich, so that’s what we built the campaign around. We sourced an industrial sandwich press with custom branded plates for each store, then wrapped the whole thing in branded paper bags and stickers so the presentation matched the product. Simple, comforting, and tied to the season, turning a quick lunch grab into a reason to stop in.

Delivered the Length of the North Island

The idea was the easy part. The rollout covered the whole North Island, 79 stores in total, each needing a press, custom plates, bags and stickers in place before the campaign launched, and running through the three winter months that followed. Coordinating freight and installation at that scale, into small towns spread from one end of the island to the other, was the real challenge behind the campaign, and the part that never shows up in a sandwich photo.

A Key Ring That Tells the Story For You

The other half of the brief was getting people to come back more than once. We proposed a stamp card: buy ten toasted sandwiches, get a free key ring shaped to match the sandwich.

It solves a real problem. You eat a toastie, and two days later there’s no way to tell your mates about it. A key ring sits in your pocket. Someone clocks it, asks what it is, and suddenly you’re telling the story and recommending the sandwich, with the timing working in Four Square’s favour given how much charms and key rings are trending right now. It’s a cheap, practical reward that turns one sale into a conversation, and that conversation into the next sale.