Wright Brand is a 100-year-old bacon brand from a small town in rural Texas. Since 1922, it has been made by the same family in the same way—thick cut and real wood smoked. Because of this craftsmanship, Wright Brand bacon is typically more expensive than competitor brands and thus, not purchased as often. The brand also had very low awareness among younger consumers.

The goal was to reach new audiences by introducing our bacon to them in a way that was true to the quality of our bacon, but also innovative and culturally relevant. By recording the sound of our bacon on vinyl—then sharing them with record stores and TikTok producers—we created an idea that was both contemporary yet old school.

Bacon and vinyl records have a lot in common: they’re both tasty, old school, and more popular than ever. In fact, when bacon sizzles, it sounds a lot like the crackle and pop of spinning vinyl. So, to own the sound of bacon, we decided to bring to life what felt like an obvious collaboration. We pressed the sound of sizzling Wright Brand bacon onto a vinyl record titled Bacon Beats and shared it with record stores and TikTok DJs who took the vinyl’s raw audio and cooked up some savory beats of their own. The resulting tracks tantalized the ear drums of millions of TikTok users worldwide and made your great-grandfather’s favorite bacon hip again. We also uploaded our sizzle to SFX libraries, and even taught Alexa to make bacon.

We wanted to share the sizzling sound of our bacon with new audiences in surprising ways that were still authentic to our 100-year-old brand. For example, when we produced the Bacon Beats vinyl, we did it right by recording the sizzling bacon with high-fidelity audio equipment, creating eye-catching album artwork, sending the vinyl to record stores to give away on Record Store Day, and partnering with DJs who respect and use vinyl in their music. Additionally, we took our sizzle and uploaded it to unexpected places like SFX libraries and Amazon Alexa.

Upon recording our bacon sizzling for 19 minutes and 22 seconds—a nod to the year of Wright Brand’s founding—we pressed it onto vinyl and titled the album Bacon Beats. First, we sent copies of Bacon Beats to different record stores across the United States for customers to enjoy on Record Store Day. We then partnered with five TikTok DJs to each make their own original Bacon Beats using our sizzling bacon sounds. Each TikTok video was promoted on an alternating schedule over the course of three months. Next, we uploaded our sizzle to SFX libraries so creators can download it for free. Finally, we uploaded our sizzle as an Alexa Skill so anyone can hear the sizzle by saying, “Alexa, start making bacon.”

Bacon Beats engagement was high with 47,954,883 total impressions, overperforming on pacing estimates and receiving 33,278,507 unique users. Those aged 18–24 gave the highest Click-Through Rate (CTR), proving that even a 100-year-old bacon brand can be relevant. TikTok DJ @Spence garnered the highest CTR of 0.19% and most notably, the highest 2-second View-Through Rate (VTR) Rate of 61.46%, which exceeded the TikTok benchmark by +20%. Overall, public opinion and response were positive. TikTok user reactions included the following: “This is the type of ad I can get behind.” – @mathewgsteel; “First song to ever make my mouth water!” – @tanks187; “Omg perfect collab most brand / influencer collabs are basic and dull; you all took it to the next level.” – @cyuskoff; “I’m a vegetarian and I still liked that.” – @banshee_baby; and “This is the bizarre music content I came to TikTok for. Bless you.” – @thecrunchybeat.