Hershey's Cookies 'n' Crème

The Objective

For the last quarter century, Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme has offered consumers the ultimate mash-up of crunchy, chocolatey cookie bits and smooth delicious creme. What could make this iconic candy bar even better? Packing cookie bits into your favorite Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme bar. In Q1 2021, while the iconic candy bar brand had yet to run any paid campaigns on TikTok, it saw an opportunity to test our platform with a campaign launch to raise mass awareness for its newest messaging. The brand knew TikTok was a unique place to establish a culturally relevant profile, and that here they could drive deeper affinity with Gen Z audiences simply by allowing platform creators to tell the Hershey's Cookies ‘N’ Creme story for them.

The Solution

Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme partnered with four well-known platform creators (Julian Bass, Marissa Gulley, Pedro Rosa and Kevin Safulko) to help bring its product story to life, encouraging each creator to promote the brand's new “More Cookies” messaging in ways that would feel native to their unique storytelling style. The candy bar brand ran auction In-Feed Ads with each creator's TikTok, reaching broad audiences in Canada. To further boost visibility among their fanbases, each creator posted the short videos they made on their account pages.

The Results

Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme’s strong campaign results proved the impact of authentic content led by native platform creators. Not only did the brand's In-Feed Ads garner 13 million views at a nearly 12-second average watch-time per person, brand love from Gen Z soared, as demonstrated by the sheer quantity of positive engagement and brand lift results after thecampaign. The candy bar brand also found TikTok's auction to be an effective testing ground for activation before scaling up.

Post-campaign, a Brand Lift Study was conducted and results found strong increases across pertinent metrics, including a 3.8% lift in Brand Association, a 4.9% lift in Brand Preference and a 32.8% lift in Ad Recall.