Brief:

• The Almond Board of California, a trade group that represents growers in the state, this month launched a campaign on livestreaming platform Twitch to show viewers how to power up their gaming sessions with a healthy snack, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
• The banners, digital billboards and digital videos feature jargon from the gamer subculture, tweaking the organization's "own your everyday" tagline to "pwn your everyday" — a reference to the term that describes beating rivals in battle royale games like "Fortnite." The campaign also promotes almonds as "energy-giving fuel for game after game after game."
• The Almond Board's campaign features three social influencers, including a bodybuilder and avid runner, who were chosen because of their active lifestyles. The organization worked with agency Sterling-Rice Group on the effort.

Insight:

The Almond Board of California's campaign on Twitch aims to reach younger audiences who are a key target for snack brands and are typically elusive to more traditional media channels. With California's almond crop expected to hit record levels this year, per a forecast by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the marketing organization likely is seeking to perk up consumer demand by targeting Twitch's rapidly growing audience.

This campaign is more likely to reach Generation Z, 74% of whom say they often snack between meals, per a study by the Institute of Food Technologies, making them a key target group. More than half (55%) of Twitch's audience is 18 to 34 years old, according to Comscore data cited in Influencer Marketing Hub, a sign that much of the audience overlaps with key consumers of snack food.

Twitch will increase its regular viewership 14% to 37.5 million this year and reach about 16% of the U.S. audience for digital video, researcher eMarketer said in an estimate of the audience size for the livestreaming platform. The coronavirus pandemic likely boosted that viewership among homebound consumers, though the gradual ending of lockdowns may restore former viewing patterns in the next few months.

Twitch's youthful audience has made the Amazon-owned platform popular among snack brands that have boosted their sponsorship of gaming content and esports events in the past few years. Those efforts include the introduction of a novelty gaming headset by Pringles that had a swivel arm to automatically feed its stackable potato chips into a wearer's mouth. Mars candy brand Snickers last year sponsored a major esports tournament, while Hershey signed a sponsorship deal with Twitch to boost exposure on its platform and at esports events. For the Almond Board, using gaming jargon could help engage Twitch users who see the push as authentic and relatable.