The Tax-Free Bagel campaign launched a week before the tax deadline—a time when conversation about taxes was at its highest in the news and media. Philadelphia Cream Cheese used this moment to raise awareness about the bagel tax and offered New Yorkers a way to evade the bagel tax legally with the “Tax-Free Bagel.” We built a comprehensive PR strategy that created a press tour for our product innovation, the Tax-Free Bagel, by delivering it to news outlets, reporters, and influencers, getting the brand featured in the news and pop culture (CNN, NPR, Fox, and Stephen Colbert’s Late Show).

Philadelphia goes hand in hand with bagels (59% of consumers use Philadelphia Cream Cheese on bagels). And in New York, the bagel capital of the world, people don’t know that they’re being taxed 8.875% for ordering a bagel schmeared with cream cheese. This is because a bagel needs to be sliced to get cream cheese inside of it; therefore, it’s legally considered a “prepared food.” Yeah, ridiculous. Philadelphia, being the most iconic cream cheese brand in the world, didn’t want to get in the way of people enjoying their favorite bagel with cream cheese. So the brand needed to establish itself as an ally to New Yorkers.

We needed to create a campaign that educated New Yorkers about the bagel tax and invited them to evade the bagel tax (legally).

We created the “Tax-Free Bagel,” a special bagel that can’t be taxed because it doesn’t need to be sliced. The cream cheese is already stuffed inside of it. We partnered up with H&H Bagel, an iconic 50-year-old bagel shop in New York City, to sell it across their stores and online to add credibility to our campaign. To promote the Tax-Free Bagel, we used a provoking message across our executions that offered New Yorkers a way to evade the bagel tax legally, without having to go to jail. This tapped into New Yorkers’ love for bagels and hatred for taxes, which added voltage to our idea and ensured that it got organic buzz.

The Tax-Free Bagel campaign’s strategy was to raise awareness of the bagel tax to tax-paying millennials in New York City. The campaign leveraged cultural insights about the city being the bagel capital of the world, partnering with H&H Bagels to add credibility to the message, and took advantage of the context of tax season by launching a week before the tax deadline when conversation about taxes was at its peak in the media.

The key message was “Stuff It.” It’s an idiom in English that has a double meaning in our campaign: it alludes to the bagel stuffed with cream cheese, but it also means defiance to the tax. This gave direction to all of our creative executions across social media, outdoor, and our stunt at Capitol Building that protested to lawmakers and government officials.

On April 11th, we released a teaser video, in-feed social posts and stories on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. We also released billboards all around the city of New York. Not only did these executions raise awareness about the bagel tax, they educated New Yorkers about when and where they could buy Philadelphia’s Tax-Free Bagels.

On April 14th-18th, the last few days to submit tax reports to the US government, we sold the Tax-Free Bagel at H&H Bagel locations in New York City (Upper East Side, Upper West Side, Manhattan, and Garment District) and online. We partnered with influencers to amplify our message.

On April 17th and 18th, we launched a pop-up activation in Albany, right in front of the Capitol Building (the government building of the State of New York) to protest the bagel tax to lawmakers and government officials. Because bagels are supposed to be enjoyed, not taxed.

Business Results:

294% Increase in sales across H&H Bagels stores

$540K Projected tax savings over the next year

743 Million Impressions

$7.1 Million in Earned Media

+169% Increase in Social Mentions vs. Monthly Average

515 Placements

Press:

“The greatest invention of the 21st century” -FOX

“The found a bagel loophole” -NY Post

“On a rebellion scale, 10 out of 10.” -NPR

Philadelphia’s Tax-Free Bagel campaign tapped into a collective love that New Yorkers specifically have for bagels. New York City is considered the capital of bagels due to being heavily influenced by Jewish culture—which turned bagels into a staple of American breakfast cuisine. The fact that Americans (not just New Yorkers) also have a negative relationship with taxes added to the cultural relevance of the Tax-Free Bagel campaign.

The Tax-Free Bagel played on this cultural context by raising awareness about the bagel tax, which rallied New Yorkers to passionately oppose the tax. Because the campaign’s launch coincided with the US tax deadline, the campaign was even more relevant to New Yorkers as well because taxes were on their top of mind.