HARIBO is the world's leading manufacturer of gummi products and original inventor of the gummi bear. Well-known globally, HARIBO has strategically grown quickly in the U.S. since 2015 but continues to be on a brand awareness journey. Chewy Games set out to engage more consumers with the brand through something they already do – playing with the fun shapes of HARIBO’s candy variety and bringing it to life. As the world’s first ever gummi gaming studio, Chewy Game’s objective was to increase our social engagement metrics on our priority channels, all while focusing on a new key audience: Gen Z.
Goals:
Increase awareness of the HARIBO brand by garnering impressions among a Gen Z audience
Deepen our relationship with our fans by boosting engagement rate across our key social channels (Instagram and Facebook)
Drive further total impressions earned via surprise & delight reshares to get in as many feeds as possible
Expand our earned media placements and media impressions to beat prior years’ benchmarks
Elevate the role of HARIBO as a leader not just in the gummi category, but in the social media space
Gen Z is the first generation of gamers, raised by gamers; 81% have played a game in the last 6 months, more than any other generation. They live to play. So, to top our previous year’s success of micro network Chewy Channel, we had to play right along with them.
What was working in our favor: HARIBO is the hands-on candy that’s playful by nature. To deliver our childlike happiness on Gen Z’s terms, we took to the platform they love most (Instagram) with the style of content they were craving (unpolished, nostalgic and interactive). Our grid became a touchpoint of our two-way engagement with our newest generation of fans.
That’s where HARIBO Chewy Games came to life: We introduced the first ever interactive Instagram arcade hosted entirely within our feed. Every piece of content in our gummi-run gaming studio encouraged fans to microplay with their candy, and with us.
Chewy Games offered bite-sized gameplay that turned stories into quizzes, posts into puzzles, and introduced a series of interactive AR filters that brought more play to our fans’ days. We gummified our grids to be participatory by nature, turning their feeds into a HARIBO-filled arcade — if it involved gameplay, our gummies found our way into it, and we featured it.
Through Chewy Games, HARIBO released more games than any major gaming studio. The effort shifted our audience mindset from viewers to players, where fans showed us they were more than ready to get their gummi on. The effort positioned HARIBO as a pioneer in the social space all while speaking the next generation’s language of play. Chewy Games FTW.
Chewy Games took the momentum that our past social strategy began, with Chewy Channel, and reinvented what the role of our social feeds could be. By tapping into Gen Z’s love of all things gaming, and meeting them on the channels that we know our fans love most. HARIBO successfully shifted our audience mindset from viewers to players…and followers to fans. Gamifying every single piece of content we created set a new bar for “engagement,” and emphasized our brand promise of delivering childlike happiness to every gummi (virtual or IRL).
Chewy Games gave cross-platform gaming a whole new meaning, organically reaching over 1M people across social channels, with 24.7M total potential impressions earned via surprise & delight reshares
Media impressions reached 1450 total earned placements and 20.4B, which were +170% and +70% of our initial PR goals, respectively
Compared to content series past, average engagement rate increased 54.3% on Instagram and over 200% on Facebook. And engagement with our AR filters increased a whopping 669%.
This campaign continued to position Haribo as a pioneer in the social space while tapping into the younger generations version of play & childlike happiness.
