Dive Brief:

• Kraft Real Mayo is jockeying to have Merriam-Webster anoint “moist” its Word of the Year and enlisting fans’ help to boost the maligned term in search engine rankings, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.  
• The Kraft Heinz condiment marketer earlier this week delivered a massive tub of its mayo bearing a “Real Moist” logo to Merriam-Webster’s headquarters and announced its intentions to win the Word of the Year honor via a letter.  
• The brand on Nov. 18 will host a “Search-A-Thon” livestream on Twitch with gaming influencers who will encourage viewers to search moist as much as possible to boost the term’s visibility. Paid social ads and on-the-ground canvassers will further raise awareness for “Search Moist” as Kraft Real Mayo looks to shore up a position around embracing testy topics.

Dive Insight:

Kraft Real Mayo is thrusting “moist” into the spotlight with a campaign that vies to secure Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. The dictionary publisher’s annual selection, a tradition that started in 2003, tends to generate online chatter and embody trends that are representative of a particular moment in the culture. The 2021 Word of the Year was “vaccine,” for instance, while 2019 honored “they” in a nod to the growing adoption of nonbinary pronouns. 

Moist doesn’t carry as much weight in relation to current affairs but is frequently cited as a phrase that gives people “the ick.” An Urban Dictionary post cited by Kraft Real Mayo notes that moist is “a word people pretend to hate because the internet told them to.”

The “Search Moist” effort aligns with past Kraft Real Mayo marketing that has played with controversial topics, mayonnaise among them. The latest push seeks to unite “mayo freaks” and “promote polarizing condiments and words everywhere,” said Frances Sabatier, brand manager at Kraft Real Mayo, in a statement. 

Since consumers probably aren’t searching for moist with greater frequency than usual in 2023, Kraft Real Mayo is trying to stack the deck in its favor. The brand is hosting its version of a hack-a-thon on Twitch with help from creators @companiondish, @maxylobes and @Bawkbasoup, who will encourage their followers to spam moist in search queries to boost the term’s rankings and enter for the chance to win free mayo products. A team of Search Moist Canvassers will also ask passersby on the street to look up the phrase on their phones. 

Paid social ads with a #SearchMoist hashtag will run on TikTok, Instagram and Reddit to rally support, while Kraft Real Mayo has established a dedicated web page for “Search Moist.” The campaign was developed with agency The Kitchen and attempts to reinforce Kraft Real Mayo as a challenger brand.

Other Kraft Real Mayo campaigns have aimed to unite consumers who prefer the divisive condiment. In April, the marketer ran a “Swipe Right for Mayo” promotion that claimed single people on dating apps who expressed enthusiasm for mayonnaise received more matches and messages than those who did not.