Hershey's launched a fully integrated campaign for its new salted caramel- and affogato-flavored Creme Bars, anchored by a partnership with Katseye, the girl group whose "Wild" EP debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in August. It's a direct attempt at one of the recurring problems in Gen Z brand marketing.
The Creme Bars and the Katseye campaign were born from insights around candy innovations in Europe and consumer behavior trends around small indulgences that provide a little luxury at a small price — especially in an environment marked by low consumer confidence.
"We've seen this huge trend on accessible premium: I want to treat myself, but I don't want it to come with a price tag, and it's not meant to signal status, either," said Katrina Vatter, senior brand manager at Hershey's. "If you're going to indulge and you're going to have something to treat yourself, you want it to be worth it."
The campaign centers on a 60-second ad set on a moving subway train. Once one of Katseye's members bites into a Hershey's bar, the group's song "Pinky Up" begins playing, and members of the group and other passengers perform choreography including a hand motion inspired by the title.
It was crafted by MiltonOne, the bespoke Publicis Groupe solution for The Hershey Company, and creatively led by Omnicom's Martin. The campaign builds on the "It's Your Happy Place" platform launched ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
When Hershey approached its agency team, it wanted a way to bring a product it believed in to younger consumers.
"How do we infuse this with Gen Z culture in a way that is going to be authentic and not cringy? I feel like this is like every brand manager's situation right now," Vatter said.
The team was "banging their heads against the wall" looking for the right way into culture when a member of the creative team saw Katseye perform "Pinky Up" at Coachella. The hyperactive electronic pop song includes the lyrics "One day, soon, the world's gonna end… I wanna live large, right before it all burns down," and nods to a playful way of acting classy.
"It's a CPG marketer's dream: the whole motion of 'Pinky Up' is a great way to integrate the product and to be able to tie the two together, and then the message of the song just resonated so well with the entire vibe," Vatter said. "We are generally a comforting, happy brand, but I think this is just a little bit unexpected, but still super fun and playful."
The campaign runs across national TV, connected TV, digital video, display, earned media, influencer, out-of-home, paid social and streaming audio. Hershey's will also run sampling and pop-up experiences in the fall and partner with Uber around select cultural moments.
The partnership with Katseye — who previously featured in a viral Gap campaign that drove retail results — continues through next year, with an in-person appearance in the works.
"We're really excited to take this not only from the video — which is really just the spark of the campaign — to then pacing it out and making sure that we're embedding this where our consumers are, not just asking them to come to us," Vatter said of the media strategy.
Out-of-home ads translate the video's subway scene into murals that give consumers the chance to do their own "Pinky Up" gesture — a route to user-generated content.
Working out how to extend a campaign beyond a TV spot into social and creator channels is the "most fun and hardest challenge of marketing today," Vatter said.
"We've got this great video that we think is amazing on its own, but that's not enough anymore. You have to then think through how you want to resonate."
While filming, the team captured "a ton" of assets to be paced across brand and partner handles throughout the year, so consumers aren't seeing the same content for the entire run. The brand is also working with influencers who share Katseye's vibe to amplify the "Pinky Up" motion.
"'Movement' may be too strong of a word for a candy bar brand, but I want this to be the bar you have to try that everyone's going to be talking about, because it's fun to eat and it's fun to indulge," Vatter said.
The Hershey Company saw organic net sales increase 3.6% in Q2 2026, beating Wall Street's estimates. The company expects a 30% year-over-year increase in brand investment to support growth in both 2026 and 2027, including a 30% increase in new innovation items like the Creme Bars versus the first half, CEO Kirk Tanner said on the earnings call.
What makes this campaign work isn't the artist booking — it's the overlap they found. Without the coincidence that the "Pinky Up" hand motion resembles picking up a chocolate bar, the same budget would have bought a celebrity ad.
And translating that motion into murals hands the campaign over to participation. Leaving behind one gesture people can copy, rather than only showing what the brand made, is the same structure as Hoka reflecting runners' own data back at them on Times Square screens. On handling the joke about your own brand, Starbucks letting Martha Stewart answer whether the PSL is 'basic' is worth reading alongside.
The 'Pinky Up' hand motion overlapped naturally with picking up the product, and the song's message matched the campaign's tone. A creative team member found the connection watching the group perform at Coachella.
National TV, connected TV, digital video, display, earned media, influencer, out-of-home, paid social and streaming audio, plus fall sampling and pop-ups and an Uber partnership around cultural moments.
Consumers seeking a little luxury at a small price in a low-confidence environment — accessible premium that treats you without a heavy price tag or a status signal.
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