BEHIND SWEETGREEN'S NEW CAMPAIGN🧑🌾
FT. THEIR CREATIVE DIRECTOR, JILLIAN WHEELER
When you think of Sweetgreen, you probably think of their salads. But after today, we hope you'll think of brussels sprouts (specifically Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts), Aki and Koichi, and their iconic receipt scarf pictured below. And it’s all because of this campaign:
Before we get into the details, we’ll share a bit of context. In case you missed it, Sweetgreen recently launched their fall menu featuring three new items inspired by seasonal flavors:
Autumn Harvest Bowl: A fresh take on their fan-favorite Harvest Bowl, featuring roasted sweet potatoes, crispy apples, creamy goat cheese, blackened chicken, warm wild rice, and Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts.
Maple Glazed Brussels and Chicken: A protein-packed plate with blackened chicken, warm wild rice, Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts, warm roasted sweet potatoes, and crispy onions, served with a side of Sweetgreen’s housemade hot honey mustard.
Maple Glazed Brussels and Sweet Potatoes: A brand-new side dish to complement any order.
The common thread here is their new air-fried Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts which are tossed in extra virgin olive oil and a blend of spices (yum), air-fried for a caramelized char (extra yum), and glazed with housemade maple sauce for the perfect balance of savory and sweet (the most yum).
To accompany the launch of this new item and the new menu offerings, the Sweetgreen team produced one of their best campaigns yet with the tagline “Brussels Are Back,” starring the ultimate 'it' fashion couple, Aki and Koichi.
For those unfamiliar, Aki and Koichi are one of the most stylish couples on the planet (by stylish, they regularly wear Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, and Loewe) in their 70s, who show off their incredible fits on social media. As part of this campaign, Aki and Koichi showcased the fabulous outfits they wore on set which people loved - it felt so natural and aligned with the type of content they create on their own page:
In addition to this partnership, the Sweetgreen team created short-form content on set, making the campaign feel not just culture-forward, but also educational - but in an entertaining way. It highlights the farms they work with and how they source their ingredients, a key focus for the brand.
For a campaign of this magnitude, we knew we had to chat with the creative visionary behind it all: Sweetgreen’s very own Creative Director, Jillian Wheeler. Jillian gave an inside look at the campaign and answered many of our burning questions, which have been broken down into the following sections:
Team and Process
Concept and Creative Direction
Locations and Styling
Talent and Social
And at the end, Jillian shared all the details about the iconic receipt scarf featured in this campaign, including a reference from a past Sweetgreen campaign that will forever remain in their top three, period. Jillian is such a creative force in the industry, and her work with Sweetgreen is a true reflection of that. We’re honored to have had the chance to peek inside her mind for this campaign. Without further ado, here’s everything she shared:
TEAM + PROCESS
One of our biggest questions has always been how the culinary and marketing teams at Sweetgreen work together, especially since the recipes and menus are probably developed way before the creative team even gets involved. And beyond just brainstorming ideas, the culinary team must have a say in campaigns when it comes to location choices and styling. For example, does the backdrop truly reflect the farms where their ingredients are sourced? Is the food styled in a way that appeals to consumers while still feeling authentic to its actual preparation? We could go on, but we had to ask Jillian how the Sweetgreen teams collaborate on large campaigns and what their creative process looks like:
PEOPLE BRANDS AND THINGS: How do the Product Development, Marketing, and Creative teams at Sweetgreen collaborate for campaigns and other creative work?
Jillian Wheeler: A campaign like Fall Harvest is a big cross-team effort here at Sweetgreen. Since it marks such a big menu moment, we’re really intentional about how we shape the messaging. For this campaign, we focused on three key pillars that represent Sweetgreen: farmers, community, and culture. These themes touch every part of the organization—from the launch of our seasonal menu featuring new Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts, to the OOH that featured long-time Harvest Bowl lovers in a culturally relevant way. Everything was a collaborative and inclusive process.
PBT: Can you walk us through a typical creative meeting at Sweetgreen when brainstorming a new campaign for a product launch? Who is involved, and how do you kick-off the process?
JW: One of the best things about the creative process at Sweetgreen is the constant free flow of ideas. While we start with the usual marketing briefs and materials to prepare the team for a launch, we also embrace a more organic approach, coming together to brainstorm out-of-the-box ideas that enhance the campaign’s storytelling. As a creative team we tend to start with OOH ideas/taglines first. We have found that it helps us get to the meat of the campaign upfront from a visual and copy perspective and work backwards from there.
CONCEPT + CREATIVE DIRECTION
Every aspect of this campaign - from the copy and taglines to the visuals and overall aesthetic - aligns with two key elements: the strategic pillars the brand team developed for this specific campaign and a cohesive mood board that inspired the creative world they aimed to create through the photography. Lucky for us, Jillian generously shared insights about these pillars and provided an inside look at the color palette and references that inspired the campaign, as shown below.
PBT: Could you elaborate on the creative concept behind this campaign? Why the “Brussels Are Back” tagline, and what do you hope people will take away from it?
JW: Sweetgreen has been known for its seasonal menus, spotlighting fresh ingredients at their peak. Brussels Sprouts were an ingredient that our customers loved in the past and had been asking for us to bring back for years. We wanted to bring them back in a new way that paired with everything on our menu. The tagline “Brussels Are Back” is a nod to our OG customers, celebrating that the return of the beloved ingredient is back on the menu (and better than ever).
PBT: Can you share some of the images from the mood board for this campaign and explain the inspirations behind the visuals - colors, aesthetics, and featured people?
JW: Our Fall harvest campaign was unique because we wanted to creatively touch on three pillars of farmers, community and culture. The Brussels farm set the stage for the inspiration of this campaign– Aki and Koichi modeling on the farm was the perfect merge of fashion and farming coming together. The styling of Aki and Koichi was an integral piece of the storytelling. We wanted to highlight their personal style while integrating nods to core Sweetgreen brand elements (ie. the iconic receipt scarf).
LOCATIONS + STYLING
Back to the topic of locations and food styling, the Sweetgreen team always does a great job at choosing picturesque locations that not only make you feel transported, but also transparently center their relationships with the suppliers from whom they source their ingredients - in this case, one of their main brussels sprouts suppliers:
PBT: How do you select locations for Sweetgreen shoots? Are any of the locations tied to the farms you source from?
JW: Location played a big role in the campaign. For Fall Harvest, it felt natural to shoot at Dynasty Farms in Santa Maria, CA, where one of our main Brussels sprouts suppliers is based. Farmer relationships mean everything to Sweetgreen, and Wils Johnson, General Manager at Dynasty Farms, has been partnering with us for years, supplying key ingredients for our menu. So when Dynasty came on board as our Brussels sprouts partner, this idea felt like such an authentic way to show the farm-to-table journey and origin of the Brussels Sprouts.
PBT: What is your approach to food styling for your shoots? Does the Product team have any involvement?
JW: Our creative team is deeply involved in the styling of our products. At Sweetgreen, we’ve been fortunate to collaborate with some amazing food stylists to perfect the preparation and presentation of our menu. Many people outside the industry might be surprised by how much detail goes into our shot sheet. Every angle, sauce drip, and plating is carefully planned in advance, so when we’re on set, it’s all about capturing the magic of the ingredients on camera.
TALENT + SOCIAL
And that brings us to the stars of the show: Aki and Koichi. You may be wondering, what relevance do Aki and Koichi have to Sweetgreen, and why were they chosen to star in this campaign? For starters, we’re all familiar with the growing intersection between fashion and food - something Sweetgreen has been at the forefront of, like when they served exclusive menu items at Edie Parker’s NYFW party in Feburary. But beyond trends, their co-founder Nicolas Jammet summed it up perfectly in his Instagram post about the campaign: “Nothing is more fashionable than eating what’s in season.” For Jillian, however, the collaboration was much more personal.
PBT: Why did you choose Aki and Koichi to star in this campaign? How do they align with the Sweetgreen brand and/or community?
JW: We’re so excited to be working with Aki and Koichi on this campaign. Not only do we have a significant fan crossover, but this collaboration is also personally meaningful to me. I’ve been close friends with their daughter Yuri (and manager) for over 20 years, and Aki and Koichi were like second parents to me growing up. Long before I joined Sweetgreen, I remember hearing the story of Aki’s first visit to Sweetgreen when she was visiting New York. Aki loves the Harvest Bowl so it was a full circle moment to bring them on board for our Fall Harvest campaign.
PBT: How do you plan the rollout for major campaigns like this on social and across other platforms?
JW: This campaign used a lot of fun techniques to create visual interest. We introduced video vignettes, a new format for Sweetgreen, which added a sense of simplicity and nostalgia. These vignettes helped tell different stories of Aki and Koichi on the farm, relying on styling elements—like an oversized scarf resembling a classic Sweetgreen receipt to evoke the feeling of fall. Our rollout strategy was carefully planned to guide fan engagement. With Maple Glazed Brussels Sprouts as the star of the launch, we started by teasing the new menu with mouthwatering close-ups of the ingredients dripping in our housemade maple glaze. From there, we revealed the campaign through a series of videos and static images from the farm across our channels.
Naturally, we had to wrap things up by asking Jillian all about the Sweetgreen receipt scarf worn by Aki. Here’s what she said: “We always like to incorporate what we call the "Sweetgreen wink." It's a way to make sure everything we do from a brand or visual perspective has a playful touch to it. One of my first campaigns with Sweetgreen was Renée Rapp:
So much of that campaign was playing off of her genuine love for Sweetgreen, so we incorporated the wink with iconic elements that tied back to the brand (oversized to-go bag, receipt dress, etc.). The response to that creative was so well received and felt core to the brand's visual identity. I wanted to carry that playfulness into our fall campaign which was how the idea of the receipt scarf came to be. Recognizable, branded, elevated — yet quirky.”
Want to submit a pitch? Email (or DM) us: peoplebrandsandthings@gmail.com