Bomb Pop blasts off on social to win over tweens

Brief:

Bomb Pop, the frozen dessert made by Wells Enterprises, unveiled a digital marketing campaign aimed at tweens as summer gets under way. The "Not One Thing" effort highlights the brand's Bomb Pop Middles that have an ice cream shell outside a gooey inside, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
The campaign includes the #NotOneThing branded hashtag challenge on social video app TikTok that urges tweens to participate with their own content. Bomb Pop is running a "Squad Up for Bomb Pop Middles" effort on livestreaming platform Twitch that appeals to gamers, and a "Bomb Pop Middles Summer Jams" contest on audio streaming platform SoundCloud.
Bomb Pop also created online activities on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest aimed at celebrating the interests of tweens. The brand worked with Deloitte Digital's Heat on the campaign, per its announcement.

Insight:

Bomb Pop is saturating social media with its "Not One Thing" campaign that highlights how its new Middles treats are a mash-up of flavors. The campaign's theme is aimed at tweens who tend to prefer mash-ups, or combining two things to create something new, as a form of individuality and self-expression, based on insights about young consumers gleaned by Deloitte Digital's Heat. The social activations "stand for being many things without providing any pressure to pick a lane, bucket, or side," per its announcement.

By creating a variety of activities on digital platforms like TikTok, SoundCloud and Twitch, Bomb Pop can engage a younger audience that's elusive to traditional media and shows a greater tendency than older generations to use social media for entertainment and social contact. As an example, TikTok usage by Generation Z jumped 33% this year from 2019 as the demographic group increased their social media usage while stuck at home during pandemic lockdowns, per market researcher Kantar. Researcher GlobalWebIndex found in a global survey of digital consumers that about 40% of TikTok's users are 16 to 24 years old.

Meanwhile, about 14% of U.S. consumers ages 18 to 24 use SoundCloud, per a survey by Verto Analytics, although information about tween audiences is less clear. Twitch's user base had been forecast to grow by 14% to 37.5 million this year and reach about 16% of the U.S. audience for digital video, per researcher eMarketer.

Bomb Pop is the latest snack brand to develop a social media campaign aimed at younger audiences as school ends and summer vacations begin. Fruit by the Foot, the snack brand marketed by General Mills, last week hosted a speed-eating challenge on YouTube Live to parlay an online challenge that became an internet meme into an opportunity to showcase its brand of snacks. Hashtag challenges are especially popular among brands that seek to engage younger audiences on social media, with brands such as American Eagle Outfitters, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Kind Snacks and Uniqlo using the format in their campaigns in the past year.