Nearly 50% of BrandTotal clients consider occasion-based marketing to be a priority for the brands they manage. Occasion-based marketing is the practice of aligning a brand’s messaging with a specific event with the goal of increasing sales or bolstering brand equity. Using BrandTotal’s 360-degree view of the social space, marketers can learn how to make the most of these moments.

The BrandTotal team took a look at how some of the iconic candy brands are making the most of the lead-up to the Easter holiday. We hope this analysis demonstrates ways that you, too, can leverage BrandTotal’s suite of competitive and brand analytics tools to reach your objectives. If you like what you see, take a moment and request a demo.

The below analysis measures social content from the following brands: Cadbury, Hershey’s, Jelly Belly, Lindt, Peeps, and Reese’s between March 22nd and April 1st, 2021.

Chocolate behemoths Hershey’s and Reese’s had majority SOV in the Easter lead-up, meaning that they generated the most media impressions across the category. The Peeps and Jelly Belly brands—two brands that have become synonymous with the Easter holiday—had the lowest SOV. This is perhaps not surprising considering many of these seasonal brands’ production was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

Looking at multiple BrandTotal metrics simultaneously allows us to infer that Reese’s was the top performer from a paid social perspective. In addition to having significant SOV within the category, the Reese’s brand generated positive consumer sentiment and a high volume of engagements. When we did a double-click into what was driving this performance, we found that the primary driver of this behavior was content featuring their Peanut Butter Eggs. YouTube videos featuring the Peanut Butter Eggs were the top engagement drivers, whereas Facebook posts contributed most to increasing the brand’s Net Sentiment Score.

Looking exclusively at Organic social efforts, Lindt generated a high volume of content. Most of Lindt’s content featured its GOLD BUNNY chocolate shown in a variety of festive and decorative photos. The brand posted the majority of content to Instagram, a highly visual platform. This content was the primary driver of Lindt’s dominant Organic Net Sentiment Score.

There were a few other noteworthy creative activations in the Easter lead-up:

• You have likely already heard about the Peeps collaboration with Pepsi where consumers could engage with both brands for a chance to win this unique treat. But did you hear about the brand’s collaboration with Green Giant? No, it’s not real, but because the BrandTotal team saw that Peeps was teasing this April Fool’s joke as early as March 29th, they nearly had us fooled!

• Cadbury hosted the 2021 Bunny Tryouts where consumers could submit photos and videos of their pets for a chance to become the new Cadbury “bunny.” This year’s winner (pictured below) was Betty, a frog from Orlando, FL.