Case Study of the Month | July 2024 

“Faced with the challenge of trying to engage an older audience with their product, Nerf demonstrates the importance of leveraging insights into where and how target audiences engage most. They responded accordingly with a layered social-first approach that utilised influencer marketing. The excellent immersive battle campaign they developed to appeal to their audience saw their 19-minute video for YouTube successfully reach a significant base of their target group. This was cleverly complemented with influencer content on TikTok to further engage more niche audiences.”

— Lynette Saunders, Senior Analyst, Econsultancy

Summary:

Hasbro’s Nerf brand sells toy blasters that fire soft foam pellets and are primarily aimed at boys aged 7–14. Nerf wanted to broaden its audience by promoting its new Gelfire Blaster to teen and Gen-Z males. To drive positive engagement and generate awareness through an immersive online experience that would capture the interest of the target age group, the brand partnered with creative agency PrettyGreen on an influencer campaign with creative group Beta Squad. The content partnership saw Beta Squad test the product in a ‘Hide and Seek’ battle on YouTube, with supporting content from micro-influencers on TikTok. The YouTube hero content generated 3.7 million organic views.

Objectives and aims:

The three core objectives of the campaign were:

  1. Drive awareness of the new Nerf Pro Gelfire product range among teens and Gen-Z males.
  2. Drive positive engagement and sentiment for the Nerf brand and the new product range.
  3. Take a majority social media share of voice over competitors (more than 50%) during the campaign period.

Implementation, execution and tactics:

Research provided the key insight that the target teen and Gen Z audience engaged highly with content on YouTube and Instagram, with 77% of YouTube time spent watching influencer content, particularly extreme challenges created by groups such as Beta Squad and Sidemen. A social-first approach using influencer marketing was selected for the campaign on this basis, in order to meet the audience where they were most engaged.

Beta Squad created one 19-minute video for YouTube, filming an extensive and immersive Hide and Seek battle at a Nerf indoor arena. Each squad member could choose up to three items to help them escape – this could include Nerf weapons, morph suits to blend in with the surroundings, or surveillance technology. The seeker, AJ, sought to eliminate each squad member using a Gelfire Blaster.

The high-stakes battle blended Gen Z humour with action and ingenuity to appeal to the target audience. The YouTube hero content was complemented with TikTok content from micro-influencers selected for their affinity with the target audience that showed the Gelfire Blaster being tried out in challenge-style videos and target shooting. While Beta Squad’s YouTube content achieved high organic reach and trended on YouTube, the micro-influencers’ content drove engagement among smaller, more niche audiences through authentic appeal and relatability.

Results:

The campaign ran from October to December 2023 and has achieved:

  • 3.7 million organic views of hero Beta Squad content
  • 425,000 TikTok views
  • More than 4 million total content views (67% of which were male; 60% aged 13–24)
  • 125,000 engagements with 95% positive sentiment

Nerf claimed a 72% share of influencer voice compared to its competitors (target 50%), and a 65% share of online content views during the campaign period.

The Beta Squad Nerf Hide and Seek video trended on YouTube, peaking at #3.