EDEKA | THE MOST GERMAN SUPERMARKET | 2018
What Empty Shelves Said Louder Than Words / EDEKA "THE MOST GERMAN SUPERMARKET"
One day you walk into your usual supermarket and the shelves are completely empty. No coffee, no chocolate, no fruit, no juice. You'd think something had gone wrong.
The problem
It was 2017 in Germany. Brexit, Trump's wall plan, and the far-right party AfD entering parliament all felt like real possibilities that year. EDEKA, the country's biggest supermarket chain with a 25.3% market share, felt it needed to say something about this mood.
The insight
Saying "diversity matters" in words doesn't make anyone look up. So why not just remove all the diversity for once and see what happens? Selling food is what EDEKA does best—so this time, they decided to speak by not selling.
The idea
At a single store in Hamburg, EDEKA removed more than 20,800 products that were foreign-made or contained foreign-derived ingredients, for just one day. The shelves and freezers ended up nearly empty. A small sign explained: "A shelf without diversity is pretty boring."
What happened
Footage of the empty store reached more than 105 million people worldwide, and the campaign won 1 Gold, 4 Silver and 5 Bronze Lions at Cannes, along with a Clio Gold and recognition from D&AD.
Afterthought
Empty shelves spoke louder than any speech or op-ed. Around that same time, Germany had taken in more than 1 million refugees and asylum seekers. I'm sure opinions were divided, but a supermarket willing to take a stand like this is one I'd want to shop at.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2018
