Everything in moderation.

For years we've heard that we need to reduce our sugar intake.

But there’s now a growing feeling that allowing yourself a few treats is acceptable. In fact, half of sweet eaters agree that it's OK to eat a small amount of sweet treats every day, as part of a balanced diet.* It seems consumers are starting to focus on maintaining a balanced diet as a whole, rather than trying to adhere to an exclusively healthy diet.

How do you feel?

Confectionery brands are wise to the fact that consumers take joy and pleasure in their snacking moments. They have embraced this trend in their marketing campaigns by focusing on how the products make consumers feel, rather than exclusively on the taste of the treat.

For instance, Maynards Bassetts' Intermissions campaign showcased its sweets as a "delicious break", while Nestlé's The Smile Factory reimagined each sweet as a factory delivering smiles. Haribo has shown adults speaking with kids' voices in their Starmix adverts to emphasise how they bring out the feeling of being a child again.

Cadbury’s Tastes Like This Feels campaign famously likened the moment of consumption to a range of quirky scenarios, including a bear scratching a hard-to-reach itch against the bark of a tree.

Taking it further.

So now we know sweets are OK as a 'sometimes food', and that brands are turning their attention to the emotion that goes with the snacking moment. What does that mean for building fun and fabulous experiential campaigns for confectionery brands?

It’s good news.

Experiential might be the perfect way to let consumers taste a product, but it doesn't begin and end at sampling – in fact, the best experiential campaigns involve as many senses as possible. Emotion is at the heart of experiential campaigns – making them a perfect match to promote those sweet snacking moments with activations in or out of store, surprising and delighting consumers in wonderful ways.

The sky's the limit.

*Sources: Mintel and IGD

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