The holidays are coming, giving marketers an opportunity to revisit brand assets which have turn out to be familiar parts of the season in the identical way that customers dust off the identical decorations they’ve been putting up for years. For The Hershey Company, that meant assessing probably the most iconic creative asset of its namesake brand — the “Holiday Bells” business that debuted in 1989 — and searching for a technique to move beyond traditional ad buys.
“We saw an opportunity to bring [back] what I might argue is actually the business that signals it is the holiday season, possibly outside of Coca-Cola,” said Vinny Rinaldi, vice chairman of consumer connections at Hershey. “But the one difference is we’ve not AI generated our assets just yet.”
Instead of embracing that controversial tactic, as Coca-Cola has done for its ads featuring Santa Claus, Hershey is pairing the red, green and silver Hershey Kisses that perform in its long-running “Holiday Bells” spot with an iconic a part of the season: the lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Along with sponsoring the “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” special that aired Dec. 3, Hershey created a multichannel campaign that features an interactive experience, digital platforms, social media and beyond. The effort allows Hershey to modernize a beloved holiday business without undermining it.
“The simplicity of the spot — no dialogue, no celebrities, just animated Hershey’s Kisses — is vital to its enduring charm,” said Stacy Taffet, chief growth officer at Hershey, in a press release. “It has turn out to be one of the crucial iconic holiday advertisements in American marketing history.”
Born of a spontaneous idea during a campaign shoot, “Holiday Bells” was created by Hershey’s former brand manager John Dunn in 1989. The 15-second ad, directed by Carl Willat, uses stop-motion animation to show Hershey’s Kisses into handbells that play “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” The ad, which marked its 2025 return to airwaves in the course of the Dec. 3 special, is Hershey’s longest-running business.
“We’ve at all times talked about how you can modernize the bells,” Rinaldi explained. “Why would we touch it? Why do you’ve to modernize it when it has been such an extended standing opportunity that is been on air? When you bring a 360-degree view of this, not everybody’s watching just the TV business.”
Ringing in the vacations
Central to Hershey’s holiday play is an interactive experience that permits consumers to recreate the “Holiday Bells” ad via an LED-powered mat. Somewhere between the oversized keyboard from the movie “Big” and the gameplay of arcade-favorite Dance Dance Revolution, the experience runs through Dec. 7 during one among busiest weekends on the plaza in Rockefeller Center.
“People could have an opportunity to interact, to capture their very own content, to share and post,” Rinaldi said. “You’ve got this incredible asset that everyone knows is Hershey Kisses and Christmas, so what higher way again than to bring that to life across all of our digital platforms, social media and music?”
Along with an opportunity for consumers to generate content, Hershey’s will enlist local influencers to share the experience with their audiences. The campaign also includes branded effects on TikTok and Snapchat, a SiriusXM home screen integration, a rewards-based integration in Candy Crush and a music video featuring country music star Lainey Wilson.
Hershey’s holiday play is indicative of how the marketer is embracing content in its efforts. While the adage “content is king” stays true, it’s changing as consumer preferences evolve across video, audio and social media.
“We’ve done numerous testing on this area with different creative iterations over the previous few years,” Rinaldi said. “Whether it is time spent with people, product or actual long-form content, what really rises to the highest is where we’re continually honing in our creative ecosystem.”
The interactive experience at the guts of the holiday effort is an example of how you can shift focus from the hyper-targeting made possible by digital marketing back toward great ideas that reach consumers across demographics and channels — from kids of all ages stepping on the musical mat in Rockefeller Center to those interacting with content and activations digitally.
“How will we get people to spend more time with our brands when our brands are probably probably the most comfort-seeking, authentic products which might be in almost everybody’s home?,” Rinaldi said. “Across our portfolio, we’ve a very robust opportunity over the subsequent 12 months to bring numerous different content experiences to life.”
Connecting with consumers
Rinaldi will help drive that content strategy as vice chairman of consumer connections, a brand new role at Hershey he assumed in October. The executive now oversees integrated media and strategy, creative studio and channel experiences, marketing intelligence and enablement, and other marketing functions and is concentrated on turning consumer touchpoints right into a connected ecosystem.
“The way you show up in a TV asset, all through to the packaging that can sit in your shelf, ought to be completely connected and may resonate with each other,” he said. “As a consumer, there should never feel like there is a disconnect on what you are experiencing with any of our brands.”
Connecting those consumer touchpoints requires Hershey to rethink the way it communicates in media and measures impact as consumer behaviors — from shoppable commerce to dual screening — shift and evolve.
“That’s a very big shift in not only our organization, however the industry usually, having [those functions] reside together to ensure that we’re fascinated by each touchpoint as we construct our assets,” Rinaldi said. “The visual identity systems our brand shelf has, the content and packaging that goes onto a digital shelf, the assets you are spending time with on a TV screen, a mobile screen or a screen that is on the gas station — all of these items play a job in a consumer’s life.”
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