Postmates Saves Julius Caesar, Blackbeard’s Ship and The Titanic in New Campaign

When a craving hits, not just any food can satisfy it. It takes the perfect food from the perfect restaurant at the perfect moment – and that combination can do much more than just fill you up. Everything can change when you hit the spot with that perfect meal.

From Mother LA, Postmates has launched its new “Hit The Spot” brand platform, centred around Postmates’ commitment to helping people find that sacred state of craving bliss. To make the point, the spots show how Postmates would have saved the day in famous historical narratives (think Roman Emperor Julius Caesar’s assassination, Pirate Blackbeard’s Shipwreck, and the sinking of The Titanic) by delivering the exact right food at the exact right time (before things took a turn for the worst in a real life). Each spot nods to a modern food moment we can all relate to, even hundreds of years later.

“Focusing on cravings has always allowed Postmates to tie into people’s emotional connection to food. But with this new campaign, we’re going a few steps further,” says David Kim, creative studio director, Postmates. “‘Hit the Spot’ is, first and foremost, a platform idea about how food can transform everything - from your disposition to the course of history, evidently. It’s also a colloquial expression that people use when the right food shows up at just the right time.”

Kim added, “It contains a dual meaning that allows us to shine a light on some of our favorite restaurants as ‘spots’ to ‘hit’ near you. This is important because our brand isn’t just built on customers with great taste but on the best restaurants that everyone in that city craves and talks about.”

The recently launched TV campaign consists of two :30s spots and one :15s spot; OOH placements begin rolling out in December. The integrated campaign can be seen across TV, digital & streaming audio platforms, and social channels. The OOH will live across billboards, stadium signage, wild postings, etc. 

“Postmates has always been the food delivery service that understood our irrational relationship with food. In this campaign, we wanted to shine a light on the irrational impact that the perfect food at the perfect moment can have on you,” says Simon Bruyn, ECD, Mother LA. “Sometimes it’s a salad that magically washes away the sins of last night, other times it’s pizza that makes you excited to work for a complete tyrant.”

San Francisco-based Postmates announced Mother LA as creative AOR in April 2019 alongside the debut of its first OOH work together for the ‘Postmate It’ campaign. Mother LA first concepted and introduced the campaign platform 'When All You Can Food is Think About' in 2020, exploring the emotionality of cravings and the real, sometimes bizarre reasons people crave food and reach for their phones to order delivery. The agency created three campaigns under the platform, with the most recent debuting earlier this year.