A single Instagram reel for Porter Airlines and Les Givrés hit 1.3M plays. Here is the case study behind Alexane Pelletier's blind taste test video.
Ask any brand team what worries them most about influencer marketing and the answer is almost always the same: can you prove it actually worked. For Porter Airlines and Les Givrés, the answer came from a single Instagram Reel by One Way talent Alexane Pelletier, and the number attached to it: 1.3 million plays.
- Porter Airlines and ice cream brand Les Givrés launched three destination inspired flavours tied to cities Porter flies to.
- Instead of a scripted product review, Alexane Pelletier turned the brief into a blind taste test game with a friend.
- The reel reached 1.3 million plays, 2.7 thousand likes and 13 comments, all organic reach from one creator partnership.
- The campaign is a clean example of what a measurable video production and talent partnership can look like for a brand.
The brief: three flavours, three destinations, zero clichés
Porter Airlines and Les Givrés built a summer campaign around three new ice cream flavours, each one built to taste like the city it represents. A Halifax scoop carried wild blueberries, dark chocolate stracciatella and dulse. A Toronto scoop layered cardamom, Ontario peaches and a cornmeal and Malabar pepper crumble. A Vancouver scoop brought together Sitka spruce, urban honey and Okanagan cherries. The official brief was explicit about one thing: no standard "here is my honest review" format. The brand wanted something that felt like content, not advertising.
| Flavour | City | Tasting notes |
|---|---|---|
| Maritime | Halifax | Wild blueberries, dark chocolate stracciatella, dulse |
| Spiced orchard | Toronto | Cardamom, Ontario peaches, cornmeal and Malabar pepper crumble |
| West Coast | Vancouver | Sitka spruce, urban honey, Okanagan cherries |
The approach: a guessing game instead of a review
Rather than tasting each flavour on camera and describing it, Alexane turned the video into a blind taste test with her friend Mahée: could she guess which flavour matched which city from taste alone. The format did three things a traditional review rarely does. It created genuine suspense, it gave the three flavour stories room to land without sounding like a script, and it kept the Porter and Les Givrés branding visible the entire time through the boarding pass wrapped cones, without the video ever feeling like an ad read.
The results, in plain numbers
This is the part brands actually want to see before they sign off on a creator partnership. As of September 10, 2026, the reel had reached 1.3 million plays, 2.7 thousand likes and 13 comments, entirely organic, with no paid boost. For comparison, Alexane's community sits in the Montreal lifestyle and comedy space, meaning the reach came overwhelmingly from people who were not already looking for an ice cream ad, they were watching a friend group video that happened to be about ice cream.
Why this matters for brands weighing creator partnerships
The most common objection to influencer campaigns is that the return is hard to measure. A case study like this one is useful precisely because the inputs are simple to audit: one creator, one brief, one piece of content, a clear reach number attached to a specific publish date. For a brand considering how to brief a video production partner and actually measure the ROI, the Porter example is a template worth studying: a tight creative constraint (no classic review), a format built for rewatch value (a guessing game), and branding that stays visible without becoming the point of the video.
| What worked | Why |
|---|---|
| Blind taste test format | Built suspense and a natural reason to keep watching to the end |
| No scripted review | Avoided the tuned out feeling audiences have toward typical sponsored reviews |
| Branded packaging kept visible | Porter and Les Givrés stayed present without a single ad style line of dialogue |
One Way talents are routinely briefed exactly this way: the brand sets the destination, the creative route is built around what will actually hold attention. If your team is mapping out the steps from brief to final cut for an upcoming campaign, a result like Porter's is the kind of benchmark worth planning toward from day one, not something to hope for after the fact. Alexane's broader audience growth since joining the agency follows the same pattern, documented in detail in our piece on her growth numbers since joining One Way.
For context on where organic engagement like this tends to land relative to paid formats, independent industry benchmarking on Instagram Reels performance is a useful outside reference point when a brand team is sizing up what a strong result actually looks like.
Keep reading
- How to brief a video production agency and measure the ROI
- From brief to final cut: the 7 steps of a video production shoot
- Alexane Pelletier's growth numbers since joining One Way
Source: Porter Airlines x Les Givrés campaign, Alexane Pelletier Instagram reel published August 28, 2026, figures as of September 10, 2026.
