The year 2017: Brexit, Trump wants to built a wall between the USA and Mexico and the right wing party AfD has good chances to become part of the German parliament. Even so it’s the diversity of different nations that shapes our world, people seem to be more and more scared by it.

So in the election year 2017 German supermarket EDEKA decided to make powerful statement for more diversity and banned more than 20.800 foreign products and products with ingredients from other countries from their supermarket. Instead they opened the most German supermarket ever with products made in Germany only. Between empty shelves customers saw for themselves how less diversity really looks like. Thanks to customers who filmed everything and immediately shared it online the stunt went viral the very same day.

After almost one year of preparation, the shelves of one EDEKA market in Hamburg were finally emptied. Just one day later, on the 19th of August 2017, the most German supermarket ever opened its doors.

Customers visiting the market were allowed to take pictures and videos while we were filming their reactions. Thanks to material shared by them the stunt went viral the very same day.

Two weeks later, on the 31st of August, we published the video material shot during the stunt. By then people all over the world had already shared videos and photos on Social Media. News and magazines referred to our experiment and we became part of an ongoing worldwide discussion about racism and diversity.

More than 117 articles were published on this subject worldwide. More than 10,000 posts were generated on social media, with an engagement of 328,000 users. Around 9,000 followers were reached on Twitter - around 9 million on Facebook. User shared the content over 30.000 times. Worldwide, the campaign reaches more than 105 million people.

After the stunt EDEKA generated 18,000 new followers. We hoped that this idea - just a week before the federal election in Germany – would make people think about the situation in Europe and open their eyes that diversity is important for everyone of us. Instead we got an even better result: a worldwide discussion about diversity and xenophobia.

The relevance of German supermarket derives from the very intense relationship that was created during the course of this event. It started a broad conversation within the online community and induced great public attention both on national and international level. Since the brand took a clear position with this prank it’s clear to say that there were also customers shied away. But deepened the relationship to those who share our views on diversity and equality. A consequence that we gladly accept considering the importance of the topic.

Target audience (consumer demographic/individuals/organisations), Target media, PR planning, Approach

The EDEKA target group consists of a wide range of people. Mostly adults with a regulated income from the upper middle class. The aim was to reach precisely these people, as they also deal with political conflicts. The stunt should therefore take place in a supermarket to reach the typical clientele.

The year 2017: Brexit, Trump wants to built a wall between the USA and Mexico and the right wing party AfD has good chances to become part of the German parliament. Even so it’s the diversity of different nations that shapes our world, people seem to be more and more scared by it.

German supermarket EDEKA wanted to make a powerful statement pro diversity and against xenophobia by doing what they do best: selling groceries. Or in this case by stop selling them.