Brief:
- Kind Snacks generated 1 million views in the first week of a digital campaign for its Mini snack bar that's become its fastest-selling product line, per information shared with Mobile Marketer. The campaign includes several activations on social media, including ads that emphasized the smaller size of the Mini bar by taking up only half the paid space.
- Kind created an augmented reality (AR) filter game on Instagram that challenged people to catch as many Minis in their mouth as they could in a limited time. Kind also enlisted social influencer Colleen Ballinger, who has 7 million followers on Instagram, to promote Minis in a sponsored post.
- An "origins" video from Kind appears on YouTube and shows how the brand cut its normal snack bars in half to make the Mini version, while poking fun at other brands that elaborately explain how they make their products. In addition, Kind released a mock docuseries with interviews of characters who explain their theories around why Kind created the half-sized version of its snack bars.
Insight:
Kind's campaign for Minis is the latest example of the brand embracing a variety of digital media activations aimed at engaging consumers in fun and entertaining ways. The AR filter that challenges Instagram users to catch Minis in their mouth is a gamified experience to prolong exposure to the product extension while helping to develop an affinity for the Kind brand. The gamified AR experience follows similar efforts by sandwich chain Jimmy John's and food delivery service Uber Eats India to engage mobile consumers.
Kind's lighthearted video and docuseries on YouTube follows similarly themed campaigns to introduce new products, such as its Simple Crunch Bars last year. The brand in October ran its first campaign on TikTok, the video-sharing app that's popular with U.S. teens. Kind's branded hashtag challenge, an ad format that urges TikTok users to participate by sharing their own videos, generated 18 million views within the first 24 hours, Ad Age reported.
The snack maker also has run digital campaigns with a social message, such as this month's rollout of a chatbot that helps people to express their support for the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed law to guarantee gender equality for women and men. The Equality Bot provides a series of steps to sign Kind's collective petition and send it to state officials. Kind also created the Kind Pride bar to support the LGBTQIA+ community and introduced the Kind Heroes bar to honor U.S. military service members.
