How does a brand stand out in the mind of Millennials on social media among stiff competition and an increasingly competitive platform? Branded content is nothing new, but Hamburger Helper found a way to make something that had never been done before.

1. Brands Doing Content Right
Davis Mastin

2. Hamburger Helper’s Problem:
• Consumers no longer thought
of Hamburger Helper as a go-
to option for food.
• Proof point: In 2005, Food
Network named it the “Number
3 Food Fad of the 70s”

3. Another Issue: The Competition Had Strong,
Culturally Relevant Social Media Content…
Chobani Instagram Oreo Instagram

4. …On Nearly Every Platform
Taco Bell Twitter Denny’s Twitter

5. The Opportunity + Solution:
Create content for this old and forgotten brand that will not only
help it stand out on a wide array of saturated social mediums, but
also last beyond the average life of a standard social media post.

6. So How Do You Measure The
Effectiveness of Branded Content?

7. Adobe Has 5 Characteristics For Vetting Branded Content:
1. Interesting
2. Entertaining
3. Engaging
4. Free
5. Spreadable

8. The branded content idea: make something
different, yet relevant, to the target audience on the
perfect day for brands to take risks: April Fool’s Day.

9. On April Fool’s Day 2016, this image started circulating
across social media. It almost broke the Internet.

10. The reason it went viral: It closely resembled the
award-winning rap album “Watch the Throne”

11. Commonly found on the
front of rap albums
The foil (necessary
to cook Hamburger
Helper) resembled
the background of
“Watch the Throne”

12. Even the album names were similar
Helper
“Watch The Stove”
Jay-Z and Kanye West
“Watch The Throne”

13. Interesting
Report Card
Comments: Not only has a food brand
never made a hip-hop based mix-tape, but
Hamburger Helper was perhaps the last
brand Millennials would expect to do this. It
was interesting enough for them to ”click” a
tweet, a post, or an article and see what
was going on.

14. The next phase: make something
that’s entertaining, not advertising.

15. People liked what they heard.

16. But what made this so entertaining?

17. They parodied hip-hop jargon really well...
“I’ve been in the
kitchen, whippin’
whippin’, I’ve been
chefin’…”

18. …or basically anything in pop culture.
“Sit back and relax, I
Netflix and chill with
the meal…”
“Belly poking out,
feeling all heavy,
Chasing these meals
feeling so Chevy…”

19. They even poked fun at themselves, too.
“All these haters salty, I’m too seasoned.”
-DJ Tiiiiiiiiiip

20. Entertaining
Report Card
Comments: This rap album wasn’t just click
bait; it was bona fide entertainment. From
the high-quality 808 beats to the clever
idioms that hip-hop junkies and pop culture
enthusiasts of all ages could appreciate,
Watch the Stove kept listeners on their toes.

21. Watch the Stove was entertaining.
But it would be nothing without engagement.

22. Things disappear fast on social media.
So it needed to spread fast.

23. Hamburger Helper accompanied the album
with support from its social media accounts.

24. Engaging
Report Card
Comments: Rather than creating a social
media advertising campaign that involved
clever, yet ephemeral, social media posts,
Hamburger Helper wisely used their
accounts to humorously raise awareness
and promote their branded content.

25. Once Hamburger Helper engaged with consumers,
they had to make sure they could access it.

26. By putting the album on Soundcloud,
consumers could access it for free.

27. This is important because putting music on
easily accessible platforms is a hot-button issue.

28. For example, Kanye West got a lot of flack for only
releasing The Life of Pablo on Tidal earlier this spring.

29. Free
Report Card
Comments: Very few brands – let alone
brands in this category – are able to create
customer engagement through making
consumers pay for their branded content.
Hamburger Helper was smart to not only
make their album free, but put it on platform
that could easily be embedded to share on
a variety of mediums for enthusiastic fans to
share among friends.

30. Add it all up, and you’ve got a viral campaign.

31. Free
Report Card
Comments: Satirical music and music
videos that were unique, entertaining, and
shareable led to the brand trending on
nearly every social media site on a day so
many brands were competing for attention.

32. Report Card
Interesting
Entertaining
Free
Engaging
Spreadable