We set our sites on social media. We can't compete with the advertising resources of publicly held competitors such as Mondeléz, Kellogg’s, Bimbo, and Hostess. But we can take on anyone in a conversation and win — and define an entire world for brand videos and engaging social content to propel MoonPie to saliency and keep it there.

The big idea to break through on social media is actually the unique brand voice we gave MoonPie: just the right combination of hilarious snark and laid-back cool, for an iconically transgressive, always appetizing super-modern icon of indulgent snacking.

Off the insight that MoonPie brings a little out-of-the-ordinary fun into your day and makes you smile, MoonPie delivers an "Outta This World" experience. This platform gave us permission to make disruptive and delicious content across multiple channels. But more importantly, it gave us the elasticity to tailor content to each segment.

After building a solid base of humorous content combined with taste appeal and usage occasions, in August 2017, for just $8,000, we activated the eclipse sponsorship with original Twitter video content and creative posts ($6,000) and paid media ($2,000). It was our biggest social campaign — our Super Bowl — because it ties into the brand name, supports our 100th anniversary, associates us with something relevant in pop culture, was an event that would receive national attention, was an opportunistic usage occasion to drive trial, and created a memory structure that would make people think of MoonPie whenever they heard about the eclipse.

And sometimes, you just need to sit back and listen. During the eclipse, Hostess published a Tweet claiming that they were the official snack cake of the eclipse.

"Lol ok."

MoonPie’s five-letter Tweet response sent the brand into historic, record-breaking levels of the social media stratosphere.

Again, can you say "no budget, high impact?" For just $8,000, MoonPie created 2017’s most exciting brand social campaign – according to AdAge and Adweek – broke every sales record, and penned the biggest brand Tweet in Twitter's history.

Reach+Engagement: Our top Tweet received nearly 195,000 Retweets and more than 522,000 Likes. The proceeding activity achieved over 1,000,000,000 earned media impressions (a media value of approximately $1.75 million). Forbes named our social media program for MoonPie “The Marketing Success Story of 2017.” Fast Company called it the “Best Follow Brand on Twitter in 2017.” And Adweek dubbed MoonPie one of the “Top 5 Breakthrough Brands of 2017.”

Sales+Achievement Agains Business Targets: Grocery stores sold out of the product. MoonPie shut down the factory due to demand and lack of raw materials. In one month, Amazon sales supplanted all of the previous year. Finally, overall sales increased 20%.