As consumers, we're used to seeing certain products advertised to us in a certain way. Ad campaigns for certain markets or products often rely on similar tropes or tactics to get our attention. Eclectic imagery in perfume ads, for example, helps us to understand a scent without actually smelling it. However, in the recent campaign Reese: The Movie, the well-known peanut butter cup brand Reese threw many of the expectations for candy advertising out the window.
The Canadian branch of Reese (known in the states as Reese's) garnered a lot of buzz with this 2019 campaign by combining several surprising ad elements in a single video — or, more like a single cinematic feature. In this review, we'll discuss how Reese Canada was able to capture millions of views with its ASMR film Reese: The Movie.
Main Elements of the Reese: The Movie Campaign
Reese: The Movie is a marketing video of huge proportions that premiered across multiple platforms where consumers get their entertainment (and advertisements) today. Focusing on the sensory experience of eating a Reese cup, the production made use of several marketing strategies during its conception, creation, and release. Among other techniques, Reese: The Movie as a marketing campaign relied on the following elements in order to make an impact in the advertising space.
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Capitalizing on digital trends: Reese: The Movie is entirely based on the popular trend of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) videos. ASMR is auditory content that evokes a relaxing, "tingling" response in listeners using sounds such as whispering, crinkling paper, and more, usually magnified to make them more impactful. ASMR has bloomed into its own subculture online thanks to video sharing platforms like YouTube, so Reese decided to jump on the trend by producing this video that explores the ASMR possibilities of eating a Reese cup. Usually, we'd expect a candy commercial to use imagery to attempt to make audiences crave what they're selling. This campaign used that strategy as a jumping-off point to do something even more in depth. While many consumers have already eaten a Reese cup, what they probably haven't done is analyzed every step of the process in detail and given their full attention to the sensory experience. Reese: The Movie was a creative way of detailing exactly what it's like to consume Reese's product using a popular internet trend sure to gain attention.
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Incorporating influencers: Influencer marketing has become a huge piece of today's marketing landscape, and Reese used this strategy to increase both the reach and the quality of their video. The production stars five of the biggest ASMR creators on YouTube, each with thousands or even millions of followers of their own. By casting genuine influencers in the movie, Reese made a smart move that proved the legitimacy of their campaign. Using their talents ensured that the movie provided an actual ASMR experience, not a cheap imitation. At the same time, it's certain that news of the campaign reached a majority of the followers of each influencer, driving interest and more than likely increasing views.
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The big production: Finally, the scope of the production of Reese: The Movie was far beyond that of a normal candy ad, which in this case, allowed the campaign to make a huge cultural splash. The movie is 82 minutes in length — roughly long enough to be considered a feature film — which was a huge factor in building interest and hype around the project. It even has its own IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes pages, like a traditional movie would. The video production and writing are top notch, and Reese made sure to give their big project the magnitude of a premier that it deserved. A 12-minute teaser video was released on television during the season premier of The Handmaid's Tale on two large Canadian networks to promote the release of the full movie on streaming services Crave and Hulu. Following the streaming release, the movie was posted in full to YouTube, where anyone could watch. By taking this multi-channel approach to release, Reese was able to reach an immense number of viewers where they already were and drive new viewers to the YouTube channel as well.
Familiar Content with Unexpected Context
While Reese Canada used these familiar marketing strategies and more in the making and distribution of Reese: The Movie, the final product turned out to be something totally unexpected for the industry. Of course, we all understand the appeal of feature films. The context is totally familiar to us. But a full length movie about chocolate and what it sounds like to unwrap and eat it? When you think about it like that, it sounds a little bit crazy. But Reese managed to capture the attention of an enormous audience with the campaign largely because of its novelty and unexpectedness. While this approach is just one way to raise or improve brand awareness, the Reese: The Movie campaign proves that if a brand is willing to build a campaign around strong marketing elements like trends, influencers, and quality production, adding some unexpected creativity to the content can actually help increase the overall impact of the campaign.
