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Kenan Thompson has a long history with the fruit-flavored candy pellets known as Mike & Ike.
“It’s one of those candies I remember grabbing at the movies or on a road trip, so there was already familiarity with it,”
he recalls during a recent email exchange. Now he has a chance to bring new audiences to the venerable confection. Just Born, the candy company that first introduced Mike & Ike in 1940, has tapped the “SNL” veteran to direct a new ad campaign that executives hope will transform the familiar sweets into something even more palatable for young snackers.
The “SNL” mainstay supervised a new ad campaign – his commercial directorial debut – in which Mike and Ike are portrayed as characters for the first time. For decades, the names have simply referred to two kinds of fruit-flavored candy beans, one short and one longer.
“We treated them like any comedy duo. One character sees the world one way; the other sees it completely differently,” Thompson says. “Once you have that dynamic, you can drop them into almost any situation, and the jokes start finding you.”
The owner of Mike & Ike, Just Born Quality Confections, faces a challenge similar to those of other long-time candy manufactures that include Hershey or Ferrara Candy Co.: How to take products that have been around for years and render them interesting to a generation of young consumers who have very different food-consumption tastes than their elders? Ferrara has transformed its Nerds, once a box of fruit-flavored pebbles, into a crunchy-and-gummy curiosity that offers unique “mouth feel” to curious tastebuds. Hershey’s, perhaps the nation’s best-known purveyor of chocolate candy, has mixed caramel and “chocolate lava”into its famous Reese’s peanut butter cups.
Millennials and GenZ consumers want more from their commercials, says Meenakshi Trehan, chief growth officer for Mike & Ike, also via email. These buyers are “constantly navigating culture, content and conversations in real time. They appreciate humor, relatability and brands that don’t feel overly polished or self-important,” she says.
In a series of spots, two candies help people navigate around everyday problems, like being ghosted, losing wi-fi or getting too many Slack messages at once. The new slogan? “We Got’chew.”
“We looked at those everyday moments we’ve all experienced, whether it’s an awkward text, forgetting someone’s name, or one of those conversations nobody wants to have, and imagined how Mike and Ike would react,” Thompson says. “Instead of making the candy the joke, we built two characters who could bring humor to situations people immediately recognize.”
Thompson helped create four traditional ad spots, as well as behind-the-scenes content and extensions for social media.
The actor has, over the course of his career, developed a strong sense of what can work creatively in a short time frame. Thompson has plied his trade in dozens of sketches on Nickelodeon’s “All That” as well as “Saturday Night Live.” “One thing comedy has taught me over the years is that the funniest moments usually come from characters you believe,” says Thompson. “Whether it’s sketch comedy, television or a commercial, it’s always about creating personalities people enjoy watching.”
Giving more personality to the candied characters can only help make a better connection with consumers, says Trehan. “Mike and Ike have been iconic names, but fans have never actually had the chance to meet them. Now they have personalities, opinions and a unique way of looking at the world. They’re funny, a little absurd and always ready to help people chew through life’s little dramas,” she says. “We see them becoming an extension of the brand’s playful spirit and a way to engage with consumers far beyond the candy aisle.”
Just Born has a wider portfolio of longstanding sweets to sell, including Peeps, Hot Tamales, and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews. If Mike & Ike can make some new connections, perhaps the others can as well.
