Because HEMA is a true love brand in the Netherlands, they really wanted to make a strong statement about equality and diversity when it comes to love. HEMA is cherished for a great number of things: their place in Dutch society and history (since 1926), their design and their products. Some of these products are not just created by HEMA, but have gotten a prominent place in Dutch society and are almost as synonymous with The Netherlands as wooden shoes and windmills: the ‘rookworst’ (smoked sausage) and the ‘tompouce’ (custard pie, or translated literally: tompussy).

We turned these brand icons of HEMA into symbols for love, where we implied that sausage should be able to love sausage and pie should be able to love pie.

We turned our brand icons, the smoked sausage and custard pie, into symbols for love, where we implied in an admittedly obvious way that sausage should be able to love sausage and pie should be able to love pie. We created limited edition T-shirts that were only available in selected Amsterdam stores where the EuroPride festival took place.

During the festival all eyes and ears are on the streets and canals in Amsterdam and we were able to put our T-shirts on the forefront of the festival celebrations. Our brand icons became the hot topic on social media with the help of influencers in the gay community who loved our gesture. Apart from some outdoor billboards only on the festival, no media was bought, but our message became the talk of the town.

Our T-shirts were sold out in 36 hours and worn throughout the festival and on TV by Dutch celebrities. On social media we were a big hit: the most popular hashtags were: #europride, #gay, #rookworst (#smokedsausage) and #tompouce (#custardpie). We generated more than 87,801,806 media impressions over the weekend and more than €2,115,114 in media value (26x return on marketing investment). The proceeds of our T-shirt sales were donated to Gay-Straight Alliances, groups of students who strive to make schools safe for LGBTQ students and teachers.