From November 3rd through Election Day 2016, Hefty ran a homepage takeover on CNN and display banners on FOX News, AOL and The Huffington Post. Within these spaces, the brand replaced potential political negativity with a simple, neutral, and refreshing message: “This Political Ad has been Trashed Thanks to Hefty.” Due to this innovative idea and inventive use of media, election-weary consumers were saved from enduring yet another caustic advertisement, while Hefty leveraged its waste bag brand in a clever and relevant way. The Internet applauded Hefty for taking a stand—without taking a side—and for making a positive impact on the political arena at such a tumultuous time.

Ads were placed on CNN.com (Homepage takeover), Fox News, AOL, Huffington Post Political Page, and YouTube :06 Bumper ads, where consumers were already consuming (or trying to not to consume) political and news content. Impressions were heavied up in key swing states, where the audience was bombarded with political advertising. Since the message was so short and to the point, display and short YouTube bumper ads were the most effective and efficient placements for the campaign. Hefty capitalized on the key dates leading up to the election (03/11-08/11/2016), and achieved a large scale of impressions with over 300 million impressions paid and earned, with a small $170k media spend, creating huge efficiencies.

Though the Trash This Ad campaign had a small $170K paid media spend, it earned more than 300 million impressions, with additional earned exposure through the press. More than nine PR outlets broadcasted Hefty’s efforts, including Adweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNBC, among others. Word of the campaign spread like wildfire on social media, with a 99% positive sentiment among users and thousands of tweets, Facebook posts, and more mentioning and praising Hefty’s response. In addition, our homepage takeover over-delivered by 214% and Hefty achieved a best-in-class ad recall of 52%—meaning our simple message really stayed with the viewers who saw it.