Kinder Joy's holiday campaign highlights family moments

Dive Brief:

Ferrero candy brand Kinder Joy released a holiday campaign that includes a 30-second TV spot titled "Doorways to Memories," according to a company release. The spot depicts a parent measuring a boy's height on a wall over the years and the child becoming an adult and repeating the tradition with his children.
The campaign includes 15- and 45-second versions for YouTube and the brand's website as well as digital and social content across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The effort positions the brand as part of a family’s special moments for generations. The brand's holiday confections will include a range of special holiday-themed toys and will also feature holiday multipacks for purchase. The holiday campaign was developed with creative agency Publicis, media agency Mindshare and Golin for social media and public relations.

Dive Insight:

The Ferrero brand joins the list of marketers that have been stressing the notion of family traditions in their campaigns around the 2020 holiday season. With many families spending the holidays apart due to the pandemic, the idea is that families can still find comfort in the familiar, such as the tradition of tracking a child's growth through the years with a mark on a wall.

Kinder Joy's campaign uses the product's surprise toy as a way to link the family moments to the product. In the spot, the boy receives a Kinder Joy egg after having his height measured on the wall. In one case, the toy inside is a plastic dinosaur, which his parents give to him again years later as he heads off to college. The spot concludes with the boy — now a man — performing the same growth-measuring ritual with his own daughter. A voiceover asserts, "Even the smallest surprise can create the biggest memories."

Other brands have similarly mined family traditions to connect with consumers on an emotional level this holiday season. Fisher Nuts, for instance, recently launched a campaign that showcases a grandmother and grandson making pies in-person and then later over video chat. Several other brands, meanwhile, have mixed elements of the "new normal," such as masks, Zoom gatherings and celebrating from a distance, to reinforce the idea that the holidays this year can still be a special time despite some traditions being put on hold, like not being able to celebrate together in person.

"These moments that families create together are more important than ever, and through the message of our new ad, we hope to inspire the creation of lasting traditions between parents and children," said Felipe Riera Michelotti, vice president of marketing for Kinder North America, in a statement.