Tabasco is a sauce that’s become a cooking staple. Over the past few years however, the hot sauce category has, well, heated up. But Tabasco is meant to awaken and elevate flavours, not bully them with blatant spiciness, like many of its competitors do.

The Tabasco “One-Star Restaurant” campaign (which won a Bronze Awareness & Trial Breakthrough) reimagined everyday meals. The brand and Rethink tapped Montreal chef Jean-Michel Leblond to demo the flavour-enhancing power of the sauce. Leblond transformed the worst-rated takeout food into four-star dishes with just a few drops of Tabasco. It then opened a one-day pop-up, serving the plates to unsuspecting patrons.

The mystery meals sold out in less than an hour, and customers were invited to rate their experience on Yelp. The experiment was, of course, documented and shared in a video, which quickly gained traction as it was picked up by Montreal influencers and news sites.