The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2020
DoorDash's animated 'Flavourhood' campaign helped it become Canada's top food delivery app
DoorDash's animated October 2020 campaign turned Canadian neighbourhoods into a 'Flavourhood' and helped it top Canadian food delivery.
DoorDash
What it had to solve
Restaurants anchor local neighbourhoods, yet they were the businesses hit hardest during the pandemic. DoorDash wanted to grow in Canada at that moment, so with Canadian agency john st. it set out to make delivery feel like an act of support for the local spots that make a neighbourhood worth living in.
How it works
When DoorDash wanted to grow in Canada in late 2020, restaurants were the businesses hit hardest by the pandemic — and the businesses its service depends on. With Canadian agency john st., it built a campaign whose subject was not the app but the local eateries and neighbourhoods that give delivery meaning.
Welcome to the Flavourhood centred on an animated film by Blinkink's Stevie Gee and Essy May. A DoorDash courier cycles through miniature, affectionate versions of real Canadian districts — Montreal's Chinatown, Toronto's Kensington Market and Vancouver's Gastown — past actual local spots including Kinton Ramen, Fresh, Mandy's and Tacofino, while a remix of 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' carries the line that DoorDash puts 'every neighbourhood in your hands'.
The campaign framed ordering delivery as loyalty to the corner restaurant rather than a transaction with an app. The D&AD entry says it became a rallying cry to support local restaurants and helped make DoorDash the number one food delivery app across Canada; the film went on to win Silver in Animation at the 2021 Strategy Marketing Awards and was archived in D&AD's Annual 2022.
Why it lands
- The campaign gave the brand a stake in the pandemic's biggest loser, local restaurants, instead of advertising discounts.
- Animating real neighbourhoods and real eateries made the film feel like a tribute rather than a sales pitch.
- Framing delivery as supporting the neighbourhood aligned DoorDash's growth with an emotion Canadians already felt in 2020.
- The joyful, food-filled world stood out against pandemic-era advertising dominated by caution and empty streets.
What it did
The D&AD case entry says the campaign became a rallying cry to support local restaurants and helped make DoorDash the number one food delivery app across Canada; the One Show entry reports DoorDash reached No. 1 in both major Canadian app stores. The film took Silver in Animation at the 2021 Strategy Marketing Awards and was later archived in D&AD's Annual 2022.
What you can take
A delivery platform grows fastest when it celebrates the local businesses that make it useful: sell pride in the neighbourhood, and the ordering habit follows.
Since then
The campaign was DoorDash's first major Canadian brand work with john st. and helped establish the app's position in the market: both the D&AD and One Show entries credit it with taking DoorDash to the top of Canadian food delivery. The film stayed visible in awards circuits through 2021 and 2022, winning Silver in Animation at the Strategy Marketing Awards 2021 and entering D&AD's Annual 2022 archive as an example of pandemic-era community marketing.
Sources
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