• by Steve Ellwanger , May 11, 2020

From creative concept to commercial production in one week can turn out to be not only safe but pretty amusing as well.

So it was with the latest commercial from Silk Almondmilk titled “Neighbors Are Still Neighbors.”

The 30-second spot from creative agency Lightning Orchard and production company Prettybird was shot entirely using the director Max Malkin’s home, son, wife and dog.

In the ad, the son is seen in the family’s garage fitting a container of Silk Almondmilk into a baseball glove that he has attached to the top of a remote-controlled toy pickup truck.

He then navigates the vehicle through neighboring streets—passing homes and a bemused pooch—until it reaches a neighbor’s house and bumps against the front door. Watching through binoculars, the boy sees a lady wearing rubber gloves remove the milk, then replace it with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. The boy smiles.

“This one was super, super-quick,” Andrew Hartshorn, Silk senior vice president of marketing for plant-based food & beverages, tells Marketing Daily. “Seven days from conception to finished product. It’s one of the fastest pieces of creative that I’ve worked on.”

Having spent an extended period of time at home during the ongoing pandemic, “You realize much more the community that you’re in, you get to know people more, and that becomes a much bigger part of your life," Hartshorn says.

He notes the link between the prevalence and "interconnectivity of communities, people cooking at home much more, and then the brand’s point of view." 

Hartshorn calls the commercial shoot “a very unique circumstance” done in a way to maintain proper social distancing. “Max essentially was able to film this to ensure there was no contact with anyone else outside his family.”

Silk is running the commercial on digital platforms and TV networks ABC, CBS and NBC, plus a variety of cable networks including BET, Bravo, E!, HGTV and Lifetime.

As substitutes for traditional dairy milk—including beverages derived from almonds—continue to grow in popularity, the company has seen “a significant acceleration in the plant-based category” due to COVID-19, with Silk’s soy milk seeing “double-digit growth in sales versus last year,” according to Hartshorn.

According to Nielsen, oat milk has been among the fastest-growing food categories of late. Year-over-year dollar sales were up 308% in the week ended April 25, 340% in the nine weeks ended May 2 and 272% in the week ended May 2.

Separate from the “Neighbors Are Still Neighbors” campaign, Silk said it has donated enough money to provide 1.5 million meals to the Feeding America organization.