Launching a craft beer in an over-saturated market isn’t easy. Targeting parents – who spend less time drinking beer and more time, you know, parenting – is a whole other challenge.

That’s why Dave Martin, founder and president of recently launched craft beer brand New Standard, decided to introduce parents to the brand through an unconventional OOH campaign. But rather than erecting a billboard or posters, the company went for an ad placement that went straight to the front yards of its clientele.

A pack of three leaf bags, which resembled the New Standard beer can when filled, was delivered to approximately 2,000 houses alongside a note that introduced potential customers to the brand. The deliveries were timed for bi-weekly leaf pickup in Toronto, allowing the logos to decorate the streets, serve a practical purpose and also speak to its core demo of parents – which Martin said can often be overlooked in a category typically focused on youth.

He knows the market is flooded, citing the approximately 500 craft and micro beer brands available. However, he says that within those hundreds of options, few speak to an older audience.

“There seems to be this gap in the market for parents, for boomers, for adults,” he says, adding that brands typically want to target either the millennial drinker or the craft beer crowd reaching for a 7% IPA. At 3.2%, New Standard is marketed as a beer for the “adulting” type – parents who have a few too many things to do to knock back a few too many cold ones on a school night.

“There’s very few people that speak to the everyday common person who has real life responsibilities such as kids and a house and house work,” he says.

Martin targeted the neighbourhood he calls home, midtown Toronto, drawing inspiration from the season and the demographics of the area by turning leaf bags into a media space. It also happens to be where New Standard soft-launched its beers at local bars, although the brand plans to expand into LCBO stores before the end of the year.

The campaign was led by DentsuBos, which aimed to strike a middle ground between direct mail and OOH.

“Rather than a direct mail piece that people threw out, the bags became a really useful tool,” says Lyranda Martin-Evans, ECD at DentsuBos.