When Company's Due, DoorDash Calms the Feeding Frenzy

So, you’re hosting family and friends for a big dinner party. Suddenly, time starts oscillating wildly, until you’re perceiving reality as a frenzied whirlwind of OMG! They’re almost here! Where’s the wine? WTF! Where’s the salad?

DoorDash Canada captures that vibe—and slows the flow to manageable speed—in vibrant videos that play like live-action cartoons. At key points in these scenarios, the company’s dashers show up and help calm the chaos.

Director Lonan García creates frames that really pop, while a version of Motown thumper “Reach out, I’ll Be There” pumps up the atmosphere.

Agency Hard Work Club began with a typical brief—to show how DoorDash delivers everything from snacks and groceries to diapers and bouquets. Where they ended up, however, was a tad unexpected.

“We leaned into the insight of giving yourself permission to order anything you might need,” rather than doting on the march itself, HWC ECD and co-founder Meghan Kraemer tells Muse. “We looked at occasions where the pressure is on, where time feels like it’s slipping away, and you just need a helping hand.”

“The superpower we all wish we had in those moments is freezing time so you can get everything done the way you want,” Kraemer says. “We took these relatable occasions and pushed them into the extreme visually. In each spot, our hero is able to slow down time and move in hyperspeed to solve whatever it is that they’re up against.”

It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but the hyper-stylized approach provides frenetic fun. It’s kind of exhilarating, accelerating way past the same old thing.

“We knew from day one that we didn’t want anything about these spots to feel naturalistic,” Kraemer says. “We teamed up with director Lonan Garcia for his strong visual sensibility—and knew he would lean into color and character in equal measure. We’re always looking to push the execution with a strong palette and visual hyperbolic identity. Quicksilver from X-Men was an early reference that we were inspired by.”

To achieve the frozen worlds with characters moving like Marvel superheroes, “We shot countless plates using motion control—sometimes upwards of 10 plates to create a single scene,” she recalls.

“It was an incredibly technical and rewarding shoot. Production and post worked very closely to create our wonderfully layered environments using a mix of practical and CG elements.”

The campaign drops this week, boasting playful OOH that works in tandem with adjacent signs from other advertisers:

CREDITS

Brand Campaign Strategy and Creative: DoorDash Canada and Hard Work Club
National TV, Digital, OOH: Hard Work Club
Media Planning: Wavemaker
Guerilla Out of Home: No Fixed Address
Influencer and Social Media: Ruckus Digital