Over 50 million US households love the unique Reese’s brand flavor combination of peanut butter and chocolate, but very few have tried it in cereal form. If we could convert even a small fraction, we’d win.

Reese’s Puffs was already an icon with the Millennials who grew up with them in the 90s/2000s, but needed to build on growth momentum by credibly recruiting the next generation of teens - Gen Z. Until then, the only way most Gen Z actually knew our brand was through nostalgia for the Reese’s rap, a musical jingle used in our advertising from over a decade ago.

An opportunity was born. What if a nostalgic musical throwback could be the sound of our future with this new generation? And what if that music could help reinforce our taste credentials in a way that made the cereal a magnet, not a mirror to the audience?

Peanut butter and chocolate for breakfast isn’t for everyone. It’s bright, it’s decadent… it’s a LOT. One could say Reese’s Puffs is a little bit extra, much like this new audience. The brand needed to re-inspire the next generation of teens to say “‘yes” to Reese’s Puffs, the most over-the-top ‘extra’ option on life’s table.

Gen Z are young, diverse and figuring it all out. And while they’re figuring it out, they’re spending a lot of time getting inspired by those in culture who in turn inspire Reese’s Puffs. Reese’s Puffs looked for the perfect “yes” creative collaborator, someone who lives and breathes this ‘More Yes’ mentality: rap star Lil Yachty.

With Lil’ Yachty, we wanted to create the most ‘extra’ music partnership, bringing his music to a new generation of fans in the most ‘extra’ way possible.

The transition between childhood and adulthood is weird, but in a post-’filtered’ social media age, reveling in weirdness is the norm. For this generation, clout can’t be bought, clout is earned through their own originality and individuality (it’s why one of the biggest crimes on social media is to be accused of stealing or lifting an idea without credit). Standing out isn’t about blending in, it’s about being yourself, unapologetically at full volume.

So, our focus here was not to adopt the same approach with Lil Yachty, but how can we create a music collaboration that would get us the same level of clout on a street level in pop culture as we can on a tweet level in social media.

The partnership was as innovative and as unique as Lil Yachty’s rap career. He debuted a re-mix of our iconic Reese’s Puff raps during his livestream concert in front of thousands. The song was streamed hundreds of thousands of times across Spotify and Soundcloud with coverage in Hypebeast among other titles.

But as we said, clout with today’s teens isn’t just bought, it’s earned by being yourself in the most unapologetic way ever.

So we handed over our packaging, having Lil Yachty put his own design spin on our box, creating four versions of our iconic box that formed a collectible poster. And then finally, we changed the humble cereal toy forever by creating a real-life ‘Lil Yacht’ - a remote-controlled toy yacht complete with a cereal bowl ‘milkuzzi’ and Bluetooth speaker to play music, including - you guessed it - Lil Yachty’s Reese’s Puff rap.

This campaign drove Reese’s Puffs share growth in both commerce AND culture. Reese’s Puff’s category dollar share grew +0.2pts, with a +10% sales lift overall and volume +16% vs last year. These are unprecedented jumps for a cereal brand, with dollar volume growth outpacing the category growth.

This was supplemented by a total of 191M impressions since the campaign started with our Little Yachts selling out in less than 60 seconds of release.

In all, we earned our clout with teens by partnering with a musical icon and delivering a variety of unique applications for his music - all informed by his genuine love for the over-the-top taste of Reese’s Puffs cereal. Teens loved the different ways they could access our partnership just as much as they loved Lil Yachty’s music.