On the TechTO stage ×1
First seen on the TechTO stage in 2019. Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Mathieu ↗
In their words
Now I can no longer give ourselves the challenge of interrupting with our advertising. We need our advertising to become content that's contributing to their media consumption.
We didn't want to go into this and just appropriate ASMR and make it our own for the sake of advertising. We wanted to do it in an authentic way.
We make a mistake sometimes as advertisers, to avoid the risk of doing something that's out of the box because we fear the negative reaction.
Quick answers
Who is Mathieu Gamache?
A marketer who introduced himself on the TechTO stage in July 2019 as being from Hershey; TechTO's own title for the talk gives his role as senior marketing manager at the Hershey Company. No current role is published here because none could be verified from a first-party source or dated recent press.
What was 'Movie About Reese'?
A long-form ASMR film for Reese. Gamache said the idea came from the ritual Reese fans describe around unwrapping and eating the cups, and that because ASMR videos typically run about 30 minutes, Hershey went longer and made a movie with five top ASMR artists together. It streamed on Crave and then went to YouTube.
Did it work?
By his account, yes, despite some backlash. He reported 63 million earned impressions, more than 520,000 YouTube views and an average of 5.4 minutes watched, and said fans defended the campaign against critics online. Viewers who did not understand ASMR had set off a small Twitter storm. As presented at RetailTO, July 2019.
What was his lesson for marketers?
That playing it safe is now the bigger risk. With attention spans falling and consumers seeing thousands of ads a day, he argued that avoiding a negative reaction usually produces an invisible campaign — 'just wallpaper' — which he saw as worse than a polarising one.