One of my responsibilities at The Hershey Company was to provide creative oversight on external agency projects. For example, we partnered with the wonderful team at Orchard to craft a character-driven Kit Kat campaign. Sales were up +18% in three months post-launch.
We got our guys protecting breaks by stepping in live for Twitch streamers and on Jimmy Kimmel:
Featured in: AdAge Creativity Top 5 of the Week, Adweek, BestAdsOnTV, Campaign Brief
For two and a half years, I led the work of Hershey’s in-house studio. We delivered in every medium imaginable. In 2024, we scored over $12 million in cost avoidance by tackling briefs in-house. All while crushing Hershey’s strict pre-testing metrics at a 100% rate. Some highlights:
This audio spot was recognized by the Mercury and IHAF awards:
By a stroke of marketing serendipity, we discovered Conan named his summer content series, “Summer S’mores.” Which, of course, we had to sponsor and get in on the fun.
Here’s a Halloween PR stunt where we created a trick-or-treat bowl that magically refilled itself, bringing childhood fantasies to life:
As the stunt scored over 2 billion earned impressions, it blew-up on Tik Tok, with these two videos alone getting over 8 million views and 380K likes:
In the same Halloween season, we pulled-off a Reese’s stunt that scored over a billion impressions. This time creating a custom Halloween bag where you can hide your Reese’s in a secret compartment, apart from all the rest:
We partnered with Paramount’s creative team for a “free” value-added spot, integrating it with our paid social idea for Kit Kat’s new seasonal, shaped candy. This work contributed to a 95% sell-through, making Kit Kat a top 5 growth franchise of the holiday season. It also scored very high on System1 and was their Ad of the Week:
Giving this success, the concept of giving iconic seasonal characters a “break” is being continued throughout Kit Kat’s seasonal shape campaigns for Easter and Halloween.