In 2021, McCormick saw an opportunity to grow French’s share of host food occasions as a way to drive incrementality.

Our charge for the year was to get French’s Mustard on one more sandwich.

We needed to deliver a pr-able idea beyond paid media placements that would get America talking.

Instead of asking Americans to put mustard on one more sandwich, we decided to bake French’s right into the bun of America’s favorite summertime sandwich - the hot dog.

Though hotly debated, a hot dog is indeed a sandwich, especially according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture definition.

We knew that a bright yellow bun would be the perfect reminder to add French’s Classic Yellow to consumers’ next sandwich.

During the Pandemic, Americans had been eating a lot of sandwiches – an estimated 300 million a day, nearly one per person, according to U.S. Foods.

What were all these sandwiches?!

We started with the definition of a sandwich. The U.S. Department of Agriculture gets quite technical, saying the “product must contain at least 35% cooked meat and no more than 50% bread.”

Then we considered our beloved condiment – its bright flavor is tangy.

For some, it’s polarizing. We needed a hero sandwich that everyone loved.

And we needed to ensure that hero would be relevant during our summer activation timeframe.

Our strategy was to get people to rethink what they know about sandwiches and mustard, by letting them experience French’s in a new way.

We partnered with northeastern bread maker, Piantedosi, to craft the perfect mustard bun, baked with French’s Classic Yellow Mustard.

We mailed the press a pre-taste of our Mustard Buns and invited them using custom 3d “Bun-velopes” to find our French’s branded hot dog carts at the most iconic hot dog spots in America for Mustard Day (August 7, 2021).

On National Mustard Day, August 7, 2021, branded hotdog carts appeared at iconic hot dog eating locations across the country. Outside the MET Museum and inside Yankee Stadium in NYC, At the Oriole's Camden Yards in Baltimore, On the street in Chicago's Gold Coast, on the Santa Monica Pier, and outside the entrance to Fenway Park in Boston.

French's also released several mustard bun recipes online for at-home baking, and proved that French's signature tang belongs on any sandwich.

Our goal for this effort was to tap into culture and get people talking about French’s.

We earned over 819 million impressions, 46 million of them in social.

The buns sold out at every location.