Friendsgiving has gone from being a cultural fad to a yearly tradition among younger generations. For many of us, Friendsgiving is the best part of the holidays: it’s a time to connect with your chosen family and cook the dishes you love before the chaos of the holiday season begins. That trend has extended to virtual celebrations, as friends who could not get together with their loved ones IRL due to the pandemic were looking to keep Friendsgiving celebrations alive and tap into new holiday traditions last year.
After uncovering an insight that over 44% of 18-38 year olds are intimidated by cooking traditional Thanksgiving dishes, we curated Gen Z cooking and entertaining trends to drive a unique brand role and data-driven narrative that inserted Messenger into the Friendsgiving conversation.
With a goal to drive consumer awareness around product features and connect Messenger to the trending cultural moment of Friendsgiving, we set out to help friends have their most memorable Friendsgiving yet–whether it be the first time flexing their culinary muscle or they’ve been around the butcher’s block before!
We worked with Messenger to create “How We Friendsgiving,” a 360 campaign that included a suite of features including Soundmojis, stickers, and an exclusive series on Watch Together (available on Messenger and Instagram) to help crews plan the ultimate Friendsgiving.
Watch Together Friendsgiving Special
Knowing it’s challenging to break through with younger audiences, we partnered with the unique trio of multi-hyphenate entertainer JoJo Siwa, comedian and chef Eric Wareheim, and rapper Coi Leray to share their unique Friendsgiving traditions and recipes and amplify How We Friendsgiving via earned, owned and talent channels.
From first-timer (JoJo Siwa), to expert chef (Eric Wareheim), to our seasoned group cook and host (Coi Leray); all three came to the table with their spin on how to throw a memorable gathering. In each of their exclusive “How We Friendsgiving” episodes, JoJo, Eric, and Coi brought their friends and walked viewers through tips and tricks for cooking signature dishes, setting the vibe, and even assembling the right Friendsgiving crew.
Episode 1: Beginner Mode with Jojo Siwa: JoJo and her best friends walk you through her first Friendsgiving meal with a simple recipe using ingredients from her home pantry. This is her spin on a holiday classic.
Episode 2: Leveling Up Friendsgiving with Eric Wareheim: Eric shares his culinary expertise (and dank cooking tips) with his crew before showing them how to set the perfect Friendsgiving vibe. His recipe is all about family classics and cooking outside of the classic turkey and stuffing box.
Episode 3: Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen with Coi Leray and RapTV: In collaboration with RapTV, Coi Leray and her closest friends come together to show how to compromise on ingredients when cooking for a group. They do work in the kitchen before diving into their meal!
Friendsgiving Camera Stickers and Soundmojis
To further bring the essence of Friendsgiving into group chats and highlight new features that could be used to plan Friendsgiving while messaging with friends, Jojo Siwa teamed up with artist Abbey Losing and Messenger to create custom Friendsgiving camera stickers inspired by what friendship means to her. Featuring vibrant colors (which JoJo selected herself), the stickers represented colorful friendships both new and old. In addition, we launched two new Soundmojis, emojis that send with sound clips, in honor of Friendsgiving (🥧 🥂 anyone?!).
JoJo Connects with Her Community
Finally, the campaign brought forth an important conversation about the holiday season and the meaning of chosen family. JoJo joined a Messenger Video Call with members of the It Gets Better Project and Pansexual Pride Facebook Group to discuss themes around friendship and her journey coming out.
Messenger’s “How We Friendsgiving” series went beyond branded content and drove an earned strategy, incorporating owned assets and talent social channels that drove key product messaging and educated press around the many ways that Messenger could help you celebrate Friendsgiving.
During the campaign duration, Jojo Siwa's How We Friendsgiving Watch Together episode was the top watched Watch Together content on Messenger.
1.2MM+ video views of the How We Friendsgiving series
Total owned social reach (organic and boosted content) reached over 19M+ with engagement rates surpassing industry standard benchmarks by 25% to over 100%+, especially on @Messenger Instagram where content performed the best
Alignment with unexpected and top tier talent garnered press from a variety of key outlets including E! News, E! Online, Seventeen, POPSUGAR, POPSUGAR Food, Eater, Mashed, Glamour, Uproxx and Billboard. Widespread entertainment, lifestyle, and food coverage resulted in over 151.4MM impressions
