Nutter Butter’s Doing What?

A staple American cookie brand, founded in 1969, your grandma’s favorite sweet treat, NUTTER BUTTER.

But there’s a twist.

This simple ‘ol cookie brand is doing the unthinkable on socials and has a stranglehold of Gen Z attention, gaining 700,000 followers in 10 days on TikTok.

(That’s nearly 1 new follower every second over the last week and a half.)

Before I get into the weeds of this all, just take a look at their TikTok for yourself.

Okay now that you’re back, what do you think? It’s insane, RIGHT.

For brands, success on TikTok started in 2019 with trending TikTok dances, transitioned into chaotic mascots (ily Duolingo), then into talking-head style videos (SET ACTIVE was one of the best), and now into horror, chaotic, cryptic creative that pushes the boundaries of your legal department.

With Nutter Butter we’re looking at a brand that is owned by a conglomerate, Mondelez, yet their legal department is a no show when it comes to this content and their social team is developing a whole new format before our eyes.

What’s their goal? So why does it work? And should you try this with your brand?

Okay let me answer question number 3 first, NO. DO NOT TRY THIS WITH YOUR BRAND. 

You’re more than likely not targeting Gen Z, your target audience is more than likely not on TikTok, and to take a swing like Nutter Butter would mean diluting the brand you’ve spent years building. So let’s admire from afar.

Nutter Butter’s goal with all of this cryptic content on socials, leaning into a creepy “Aidan” character, and jump scares is the exact same playbook the best horror movies run.

Build intrigue with a familiar character (the Nutter Butter cookie), flip expected storyline on its head (eerie music, jump cuts), and lean into mystery to get viewers talking about the subject (who is Aidan??).

It’s working. Nutter Butter is trying to revive their brand, establish some relevance with Gen Z, and capture all sorts of attention.

Within the last 10 days Nutter Butter has gained 700k+ followers on TikTok alone and every big brand on the platform is in their comment section trying to figure out what’s going on.

The real sauce with this move by Nutter Butter though is the fact that few brands have ever gone the creepy route on social media successfully. 

They’ve walked the tightrope beautifully by keeping the videos lighthearted enough to keep the casual viewer hooked and talking about the brand without repulsing them. It’s creepy, but funny and outrageous at the same time.

I mean, after all how scary can a 3 inch peanut butter cookie be LOL.

Likes don’t equal cash, but when you’re creating this much buzz on one platform that conversations about it are being had on EVERY OTHER PLATFORM, you’re trending in every way, and your following has increased by 200%+ then it’s a given that you’ll see a bump on the bottom line.

Take a look at Google trends searches for Nutter Butter below, they’re at an all time high and “Nutter Butter TikTok” searches are up 3,800%.

And just as a little easter egg for you, the “Aidan” character behind most of the TikTok videos comes from a TikTok user who commented under EVERY Nutter Butter TikTok for months, his name is Aidan.

I found him on LinkedIn, and he just so happens to work at the very Marketing agency (Dentsu Creative) that Nutter Butter hired to help with their socials…