How U-Studio, Oliver and Klondike got generation X to care again
Unilever’s U-Studio and Oliver Agency won at The Drum Awards for Social Media 2022 in the Most Effective Use of Group or Community category for its 'Bar-cade' campaign. Here, we find out how they re-engaged their gen X demographic.
Klondike's Bar-cade campaign won big at The Drum Social Media Awards / Credit: U-Studio / Klondike
We hear plenty about gen Z and millennials, but Gen X are still an essential demographic for a lot of brands. Not least frozen treat icons Klondike, whose core demographic is the 40-55-year-olds who haven’t been liking or subscribing much over recent years. With the help of Unilever’s Oliver-partnered in-house agency U-Studio, they brought the 80s back to gen X with a raft of activities surrounding the retro-themed ‘Klondike Bar-cade’.
The brief
The campaign targeted the hard-to-reach 40-55 demographic, despite the fact that that generation would be more familiar with TicTacs that TikToks.
To draw this reticent generation’s attention, the brand would deploy a series of gen X’s favorite arcade games, remixed with the brand’s best-loved products and newest innovations.
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The idea
Just as next-generation games consoles were being released, Klondike dropped Bar-cade. Alongside gamified social content, it gave away working Bar-cade consoles.
The campaign made use of new alongside existing social platforms, with Klondike becoming the first verified food brand on SpaceHey, a platform that recalls the nostalgic past of internet communication.
Among wide array of activations, the brand also set up the ‘What Would You Do’ hotline: a real number that gen Xers were able to call, and tell the brand what they’d do for a Klondike.
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The results
The real-world Bar-cade consoles proved so popular that some punters were caught on Twitter offering to trade their PlayStation 5s for them. Speaking of Twitter, the campaign won the brand a large fan base on the platform, which it was later able to transfer to Instagram with an additional ‘scavenger hunt’ activation. The latter itself generated over 15m impressions and a 5% follower increase on Instagram.
During October – in fact on the day of Meta’s famous 7-hour outage - #4aKlondike became the 20th most-tweeted hashtag on the planet.
This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Social Media 2022. Find out how you can enter now.