To prove Hidden Valley Ranch is serious about flavor to hype loving Gen Z’ers, we directed them to the epicenter of hype culture and brand collaborations, ComplexCon in Long Beach, California.

ComplexCon is an annual event that brings together the world's most influential brands and artists to showcase new trends in style, art, design, food, and more, making it the perfect canvas for our subversive self-collaboration.

There, we took control with a Snap AR lens that turned every other brand's booth into an opportunity for our target audience to purchase a limited-edition Hidden Valley Ranch Double Ranch bottle.

Americans love Hidden Valley Ranch. They unapologetically put ranch on everything from salads to burgers, from pizza to macaroni and cheese. They love it so much, it’s even become a part of American culture by way of celebrities, TV shows, restaurants, and just about every American all sharing their obsession with our flavor.

Americans also love hype culture, which has emerged predominantly in the fashion and streetwear scene. It revolves around the obsession and pursuit of highly sought-after, limited edition, and often expensive clothing, shoes, accessories, and other consumer goods. Because rare items are so highly coveted in this community, brand collaborations have become excessive and incessant. Which made for the perfect ridiculous canvas for us to prove to Gen Z how serious about flavor we are.

Situation:

Everybody loves the serious flavor of Hidden Valley Ranch, but Gen Z no longer craves flavor alone; they crave the hype that comes with it. They’re willing to pay exorbitant prices for brand collab hoodies, wait hours for entry into exclusive brand collab events, and race against bots online for the chance to cop brand collab sneakers. To connect with the next generation of Hidden Valley Ranch consumers, we wanted in.

Brief:

Launch the Only Serious About Flavor platform with an activation targeting Gen Z.

Objectives:

Make Hidden Valley Ranch one of the most talked about brands at the high school lunch table by becoming synonymous with Gen Z hype culture.

Budget:

$150,000

Project scale & volume:

Hidden Valley Ranch Double Ranch was a limited edition release of 222 ‘X’ bottles.

Hidden Valley Ranch is delicious, but hard to take seriously beyond its flavor. This thought formed the basis of the brand’s new platform of “Only Serious About Flavor.” The strategy? Subvert culture in unserious ways that put our serious flavor in the limelight.

Through social listening and cultural audits, we identified the world of hype culture as an excellent canvas for subversion. At the center of this subculture are brands collaborating with other brands to create drops that people feverishly attempt to purchase. It’s all taken far too seriously.

But we’re only serious about flavor, so instead of doing a stereotypical brand collaboration, we enlisted the only other brand in the world as serious about flavor as Hidden Valley Ranch — Hidden Valley Ranch. Using the world’s first self-collaboration, we subverted hype culture and proved to Gen Z no other brand is as serious about flavor as Hidden Valley Ranch.

Hidden Valley Ranch is delicious, but a hard product to take seriously beyond its flavor. This thought formed the basis of the brand’s new platform of “Only Serious About Flavor.” The strategy behind the campaign was to subvert culture in unserious ways that put our serious flavor in the limelight.

The brief was simple: launch the Only Serious About Flavor platform with an activation targeting Gen Z.

Through social listening and cultural audits, we honed-in on the world of hype culture as an excellent canvas for subversion. At the center of this subculture are brands collaborating with other brands to create exclusive drops that people feverishly attempt to get their hands on. All of the hype is taken far too seriously.

We created a hyped item of our own and dropped it at ComplexCon, driving our target audience to the event for a chance to purchase.

We developed a limited edition bottle comprising two Hidden Valley Ranch Bottles to create an ‘X’ that poked fun at the very symbol of hype culture — the ‘X’ found at the center of every other brand collab out there and released it at the mecca of hype culture and brand collabs, ComplexCon.

While other brands bought booths for their drops, we used a one-of-a-kind Snap lens to turn every booth into a Hidden Valley Ranch booth. When ComplexCon attendees used the lens, they were given a chance to score one of the exclusive Hidden Valley Ranch Double Ranch bottles.

To further play up our subversion of hype culture, we did a limited run of 222 Hidden Valley Ranch Double Ranch bottles and special edition kits. Why 222? Because ‘222’ sounded more double-y-er.

Our exclusive run of 222 Hidden Valley Ranch Double Ranch bottles sold out on our site in under 30 minutes, garnering 1.9 Billion impressions, and leading to a 8.6% sales increase of all bottled Hidden Valley Ranch.

By dropping the world’s first self-collaboration at ComplexCon, and taking over every booth at ComplexCon, we were able to subvert hype culture and connect with a younger audience while simultaneously proving the only thing Hidden Valley Ranch takes seriously is flavor.