A last-minute flyer redesign to rework a supply-side challenge wasn’t for the sheepish.

A major Canadian grocery store chain we work closely with realized last-minute that they had a major logistical problem with having lamb as a featured item in their upcoming flyer – they discovered that there wouldn’t be enough lamb in the province to meet the potential demand.

Inventory gaps on front-page flyer items are never good, and frustrated customers looking for lamb are bad news for stores.

To make up for the supply gap, the grocery chain decided to substitute the Ontario lamb with lamb from New Zealand in parts of the province. Now there’d be enough lamb, but two sets of product introduced a whole host of new challenges. Our team had to identify which stores specifically would be selling Ontario lamb and which would sell the New Zealand lamb, and making sure that the flyers were distributed correctly.

The heat was on! In under 24 hours, we would need to design, zone and deliver an additional version of the flyer to meet the production deadline and ensure there was no interruption to customer flyer distribution.

To successfully create this flyer in a time crunch, our team took the lead across the business, creative, production and print teams to coordinate and come up with a solution. There could be absolutely no errors on  where the two flyers were set to go, as the New Zealand lamb was priced higher than the Ontario lamb.

After the necessary check-ins and approvals, the updated flyer was ready to to be sent out in the areas carrying the New Zealand lamb.

Success! In 24 hours we were able to redesign the flyer and rezone the distribution in a herculean effort. And each discerning customer was able to have their lamb, all none the wiser to the tempest of logistical decisions needed to ensure the process was seamless.