Dolmio is bringing back the famous puppet family that helped make its pasta sauce ads part of Australian supermarket memory. More than 20 years after Papa, Mama and the rest of the Italian-inspired puppet family first appeared, Dolmio is reviving the characters in a new campaign celebrating family mealtime. The brand has long been tied to weeknight pasta in Australian households, with supermarket staples including tomato pasta sauce, bolognese, lasagne sauce and pasta bake sauce. Rachel Humphrey, Marketing Director, Mars Food & Nutrition Australia, said, “The Dolmio Family has been part of Australian households for more than two decades and remains one of the most recognisable parts of our brand’s history. “As we looked to the future of the brand, we saw an opportunity to celebrate a family that a whole generation of Aussies grew up with. Bringing them back is about reconnecting with that nostalgia, while introducing them to a new generation in a way that feels fresh, relevant and true to what made them so memorable in the first place.” The relaunch also includes the Dolmio Puppetiser, a limited-time digital experience that lets families upload photos and turn them into personalised Dolmio-style puppet portraits. Some participants will have the chance to see their puppet portraits featured on digital billboards in selected locations across Australia. The original Dolmio Family was created in Australia in 2003 by Sydney-based special effects studio Make-Up Effects Group, using handcrafted puppets, costumes and animatronics. The characters later appeared in global campaigns and became one of Australia’s most recognisable brand marketing exports. For the new campaign, Papa, Mama and the rest of the family have been recreated digitally. Actors’ performances were captured using motion technology and refined by animators, with 3D artists designing the characters to keep the puppet-like feel of the originals. The characters are also voiced by Italian-born actors. Humphrey said, “The original Dolmio Family was created to capture the joy, humour and connection that happens around the dinner table. “Our Puppetiser gives families the opportunity to become part of that story themselves. It’s a new way to celebrate what has always sat at the heart of Dolmio: bringing people together, one meal at a time.” The campaign is partly about nostalgia, but Dolmio is not just putting the puppets back on screen and calling it a comeback. Through the Puppetiser, created in partnership with oOh!media and POLY, families can place themselves inside the same visual world. Content creators will lead the initial rollout, with the campaign also running across out-of-home billboards, social content and PR activity. The idea is tied to Dolmio’s Wear the Dolmio Grin platform, celebrating the different personalities, traditions and dinner-table moments that shape family life. For anyone who remembers the original ads, the return is a very specific kind of supermarket nostalgia: red sauce jars, big family dinners and puppet faces that somehow lodged themselves in the Australian advertising memory bank. Source: Herd MSL Find more food culture updates on Crumb Wire.