2022 Winner
GoldBest Disruption
GoldBest Launch/Relaunch
SilverBest in Consumer Engagement
The Hershey Company (Oh Henry!)
"Level Up - Turning Chocolate
Into Digital Currency"
UM, Anomaly, Twitch
"Level Up - Turning Chocolate
Into Digital Currency"
UM, Anomaly, Twitch
Oh Henry!, a classic favourite in the Canadian confectionery world, found itself struggling to build relevance with Gen Z and was at risk of being labeled as “Dad’s favourite chocolate bar”.
Oh Henry! also faced new challenges in 2021. It was the year of the pandemic, but also the year of gaming, with 55% of Gen Z playing video games significantly more often than in pre-pandemic times. As people spent more time at their consoles and desks, the rise of gaming culture also gave rise to mindless snacking – chips, pretzels and candies. This created even more generic competition for Oh Henry!’s quest to own the “hunger game,” not to mention the tough, ongoing battle with legacy competitors, Snickers and Mars.
To tackle these threats, Oh Henry! launched the Level Up bar, an exciting new brand designed to satisfy the Gen Z gamer’s fiercest snacking needs. Campaign objectives were ambitious: get on Gen Z’s radar, drive engagement and credibility, and generate sales.
However, simply declaring Level Up’s arrival would not be enough. Gen Z, who regard authenticity as a brand’s most important currency, would need to see a genuine connection between their passion for gaming and the brand. The agency’s research revealed that Gen Z gamers care about relationships they create around gaming just as much as they care about gaming itself. For Gen Z, gaming isn’t just a pastime, it’s a lifestyle. Gaming during the pandemic was used not only as a form of escape and entertainment, but also to help cope emotionally, to reduce stress and to relax with others.
These insights posed a unique opportunity for Oh Henry! and helped shape its media strategy: deliver an enhanced experience to gamers through community building, while authentically demonstrating Oh Henry!’s commitment to the gaming universe. Oh Henry! partnered with Twitch, the world’s largest gaming community and host to 91% of all video game streaming, to transform Level Up from a chocolate bar into a social passport and digital wallet for gamers.
Oh Henry! Level Up bar, built to satisfy gamers’ hunger, would double as digital currency that gamers could use to create more immersive experiences and build stronger relationships on the Twitch platform. With so many experiences having been taken away from Gen Z in the physical world, Oh Henry! found a way to give back - virtually.
To bring this vision to life, the brand printed unique codes on all Level Up bars, each redeemable for 50 Bits on Twitch. Bits is the digital currency used on the platform to creatively celebrate and encourage the gaming community. Upon purchase, consumers could redeem the Bit codes to support their favorite streamers and get access to special features on Twitch. Cheering on their favourite streamers also boosted their own voice and interaction within the Twitch community and led to
greater social acknowledgement.
This campaign was further amplified through high-impact media across Twitch, social media and point-of-sale to create a rich full-funnel experience from awareness to purchase and, ultimately,
redemption and sales.
Oh Henry! reached high-value audiences who were most likely to resonate with the Bits value proposition through data-fueled precision targeting and contextual ad placement. The campaign was a ground-breaking media initiative, demonstrating out-of-the-box thinking and disrupting conventions at a global, category and brand levels. Oh Henry! Level Up and Twitch created a global-first innovation that literally transformed the chocolate bar into redeemable digital currency, Bits.
While complex to execute, the audience experience was seamless. It started with the launch of the first-ever on-pack gamer program by printing unique codes redeemable for Bits. By successfully using Bits to incentivize purchase, Oh Henry! Level Up was able to align Gen Z consumers’ purchasing behaviour with their personal passions. This media-propelled innovation created an entirely new way for Gen Z to engage in their favourite pursuit, and gave Oh Henry! the opportunity to provide value to this important audience in a unique and relevant way.
Finally, in another category first, the brand leveraged Twitch’s newest stream display ad unit, using native advertising to create a more integrated brand experience for gamers. Oh Henry! Level Up’s world-first campaign smashed industry performance benchmarks, took the gaming community by storm and cemented Level Up’s position as the chocolate bar for gamers.
The results exceeded breakthrough and engagement norms. Unaided brand awareness was four times higher than industry norms, results exceeded CTR for stream display ad benchmarks by 683% and they also beat code redemption benchmarks by 400%. The campaign saw a +32% lift in gaming association, a +51% lift in message association and drove a +10% baseline sales lift, outpacing the category
by double.
Oh Henry! tackled the challenge of becoming Gen Z gamers’ go-to snack by providing a rich, immersive, end-to-end consumer experience that delighted gamers across the country. It also created a powerful promotional platform that effectively brought a whole new customer segment into the Oh Henry! franchise. The brand met Gen Z gamers in a world that they passionately wanted to be a part of and elevated snacking to a whole new level. Mission accomplished.
Oh Henry! also faced new challenges in 2021. It was the year of the pandemic, but also the year of gaming, with 55% of Gen Z playing video games significantly more often than in pre-pandemic times. As people spent more time at their consoles and desks, the rise of gaming culture also gave rise to mindless snacking – chips, pretzels and candies. This created even more generic competition for Oh Henry!’s quest to own the “hunger game,” not to mention the tough, ongoing battle with legacy competitors, Snickers and Mars.
To tackle these threats, Oh Henry! launched the Level Up bar, an exciting new brand designed to satisfy the Gen Z gamer’s fiercest snacking needs. Campaign objectives were ambitious: get on Gen Z’s radar, drive engagement and credibility, and generate sales.
However, simply declaring Level Up’s arrival would not be enough. Gen Z, who regard authenticity as a brand’s most important currency, would need to see a genuine connection between their passion for gaming and the brand. The agency’s research revealed that Gen Z gamers care about relationships they create around gaming just as much as they care about gaming itself. For Gen Z, gaming isn’t just a pastime, it’s a lifestyle. Gaming during the pandemic was used not only as a form of escape and entertainment, but also to help cope emotionally, to reduce stress and to relax with others.
These insights posed a unique opportunity for Oh Henry! and helped shape its media strategy: deliver an enhanced experience to gamers through community building, while authentically demonstrating Oh Henry!’s commitment to the gaming universe. Oh Henry! partnered with Twitch, the world’s largest gaming community and host to 91% of all video game streaming, to transform Level Up from a chocolate bar into a social passport and digital wallet for gamers.
Oh Henry! Level Up bar, built to satisfy gamers’ hunger, would double as digital currency that gamers could use to create more immersive experiences and build stronger relationships on the Twitch platform. With so many experiences having been taken away from Gen Z in the physical world, Oh Henry! found a way to give back - virtually.
To bring this vision to life, the brand printed unique codes on all Level Up bars, each redeemable for 50 Bits on Twitch. Bits is the digital currency used on the platform to creatively celebrate and encourage the gaming community. Upon purchase, consumers could redeem the Bit codes to support their favorite streamers and get access to special features on Twitch. Cheering on their favourite streamers also boosted their own voice and interaction within the Twitch community and led to
greater social acknowledgement.
This campaign was further amplified through high-impact media across Twitch, social media and point-of-sale to create a rich full-funnel experience from awareness to purchase and, ultimately,
redemption and sales.
Oh Henry! reached high-value audiences who were most likely to resonate with the Bits value proposition through data-fueled precision targeting and contextual ad placement. The campaign was a ground-breaking media initiative, demonstrating out-of-the-box thinking and disrupting conventions at a global, category and brand levels. Oh Henry! Level Up and Twitch created a global-first innovation that literally transformed the chocolate bar into redeemable digital currency, Bits.
While complex to execute, the audience experience was seamless. It started with the launch of the first-ever on-pack gamer program by printing unique codes redeemable for Bits. By successfully using Bits to incentivize purchase, Oh Henry! Level Up was able to align Gen Z consumers’ purchasing behaviour with their personal passions. This media-propelled innovation created an entirely new way for Gen Z to engage in their favourite pursuit, and gave Oh Henry! the opportunity to provide value to this important audience in a unique and relevant way.
Finally, in another category first, the brand leveraged Twitch’s newest stream display ad unit, using native advertising to create a more integrated brand experience for gamers. Oh Henry! Level Up’s world-first campaign smashed industry performance benchmarks, took the gaming community by storm and cemented Level Up’s position as the chocolate bar for gamers.
The results exceeded breakthrough and engagement norms. Unaided brand awareness was four times higher than industry norms, results exceeded CTR for stream display ad benchmarks by 683% and they also beat code redemption benchmarks by 400%. The campaign saw a +32% lift in gaming association, a +51% lift in message association and drove a +10% baseline sales lift, outpacing the category
by double.
Oh Henry! tackled the challenge of becoming Gen Z gamers’ go-to snack by providing a rich, immersive, end-to-end consumer experience that delighted gamers across the country. It also created a powerful promotional platform that effectively brought a whole new customer segment into the Oh Henry! franchise. The brand met Gen Z gamers in a world that they passionately wanted to be a part of and elevated snacking to a whole new level. Mission accomplished.
Credits
HERSHEYSenior Marketing Director, Alexia Wharton
Senior Marketing Manager, Reese/Oh Henry, Kaetlyn Graham
Marketing Manager, Oh Henry, Alejandro Mosquera
Associate Marketing Manager, Oh Henry, Susanne Hartkorn
UM
EVP, Client Business Partner, Kate Mateer
VP, Client Business Partner, Joanna Janisse
Senior Director, Connections Planning, Ratna Shankar
Manager, Connections Planning, Brooke Goldenberg
ANOMALY
Executive Creative Director / Partner, Pete Breton
Associate Creative Director, Marko Pandza
Associate Creative Director, Jason Kerr
Art Director, Claire Barnette
Writer, Greg Seles
President, Managing Partner, Candace Borland
Head of Client Services, Bryden McDonald
Business Director, Erin Wilbur
Account Executive, Lauren Zaitz
Account Supervisor, Rhiannon Enss
Account Supervisor, Carly Watson
Strategy Director, Joshua Crost
Agency Producer, Martina Esguerra
Director of Photography / Editor, Christian Flook
Post Production Producer, Jo-Ann Cook
Music Producer, Rocco Gagliese
Music Executive Producer, Nicola Treadgold
Sound Engineer, Nathan Handy
Sound Engineer, Dan Horton
AMAZON
Team Lead, CPG, Dean Hayward
Account Executive, Deana Georgas
Senior Account Manager, Asher Packard
Head of Sales, Twitch, Christopher Walton
Director of Client Strategy, Twitch, Terry Mangan
Senior Client Success Manager, Twitch, Brian Crochetiere