Sweethearts Situationships play off the dating trends of America's Gen Z, where blurry, undefined relationships -- called "situationships" -- are the most popular type of modern relationship. This type of dating is purposely ambiguous and noncommittal. By taking Sweethearts biggest product flaw - misprinted and blurry hearts - and repackaging it as limited edition "Situationship" hearts we were able to appeal to Gen-Z and tap into the latest cultural trends. As evidenced by over 3 billion media impressions for the idea.

Sweethearts, a 120 year old brand, had a massive perception problem. The heart shaped conversation candies are an iconic Valentine’s gift, but the brand’s image is rooted in nostalgia. And to younger consumers like Gen Z, that image is old-fashioned, outdated, and even irrelevant.

Our brief was to flip Gen Z attitudes towards the brand. To create an idea that transforms Sweethearts from a candy for school kids into a brand with a true place in the modern day cultural conversation.

Our strategy dove into the modern relationship landscape, where we found blurry, undefined situationships to be the #1 dating trend. The challenge became how to celebrate that new type of relationship in a way that felt breakthrough – and true to Gen Z.

The transformation began with a long look at our product itself. The candies in a box of Sweethearts aren’t always perfectly printed, and some are blurry and tough to read. We used to think of them as rejects. Turns out, they were perfect.

So we took the blurriest, most misprinted Sweethearts on our production line and transformed them into an entirely new product: Sweethearts Situationships. Boxes filled only with blurry, hard to read messages, designed to be the perfect commentary on all the unclear feelings in Gen Z's modern day dating.

We sold Sweethearts Situationships online in two drops, both of which sold out in under 2 mins and garnered over 3 billion media impressions - the equivalent of 28 Super Bowl spots.

We created Sweethearts Situationships, and launched them online in two drops. Each sold out in minutes. But by celebrating situationships, we didn’t just transform Sweethearts’ misprinted candies into a viral new product.

We transformed a 120 year old brand into a part of the pop-culture conversation. One that speaks Gen Z’s language, as evidenced by earning more than 3.2 billion impressions and generating over 7,000 ugc mentions on TikTok and Meta.

Our first and second drop of Sweethearts Situationships sold out in less than 5 minutes, and resulted in over 3.2 billion earned impressions across 3,100 international earned media hits. All on a total production budget of ~$63,000.

From People Magazine, to Good Morning America, to the Late Show with Stephen Colbert – because of our Situationships campaign, the first time in 120 years, everyone was talking about Sweethearts candies.

Amongst our target audience specifically, we saw a 224% increase in brand interest and a 600% increase in our social following. Across TikTok and Meta, we saw over UGC 7,000 videos, along with countless comments and memes calling out peoples’ own situationships – generating over 5 million views on organic user generated content.