‘The year of Hershey’s’: Inside the confectioner’s first brand platform in 8 years

Some brands refresh campaigns annually. Others take a little more time off.

It’s much easier, of course, to take a pause between campaigns when the brand in question is already a household name. That’s the case for Hershey’s, which is rolling out its first new brand campaign since 2018 this month, kicking off ahead of the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

For Vinny Rinaldi, VP of consumer connections at The Hershey Company, releasing the first new brand platform in eight years around the same time as the Winter Games was a perfect kick-off moment. The global athletic competition is the first major cultural touchstone in a year uniquely packed with them: there will also be the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and America 250 (a celebration of the country’s 250th birthday). And this year, a feature film about the company’s founder is also set to be released.

They’re all moments that the brand plans to activate and build momentum around.

“When you put all these things together, what better way than to bring a brand like Hershey’s [back]—over 130 years old, part of the American society, entrepreneurial, unbelievably connected—through cultural moments between the World Cup and the Olympics?” Rinaldi told Marketing Brew. “It just really led us to the year of Hershey’s.”

Olympic return: To debut the new positioning, called “Hershey’s. It’s Your Happy Place,” the confections brand tapped five Olympic and Paralympic athletes, including snowboarder Brenna Huckaby; speedskaters Erin Jackson and Jordan Stolz; ice hockey player Hilary Knight; and figure skater Jason Brown. The athletes star in spots created by The Martin Agency that celebrate the journey to the games while also emphasizing that winning gold isn’t the only path to happiness.

The company has been a Team USA sponsor since 2015, and it plans to support the Games again in 2028 in Los Angeles. That connection made it simple to time the campaign’s debut to the Olympic kickoff, which will take place on Feb. 6, the Friday before the Super Bowl, rather than during the Big Game itself.

“It was the bigger moment to go after for us as a brand,” Rinaldi said, noting that the brand never considered doing both the Olympics and the Super Bowl. “We really wanted to put the focus of this brand around these athletes and bring them to life through the Olympic Games and then going the rest of the year.”

Bringing people together: The emotional connection that people have to sports on the global stage also made it attractive to use the Winter Games to communicate a new story about Hershey’s, Rinaldi said.

“Few things in the world bring as much different emotion out of people, whether it’s the highest of highs and the lowest of lows,” he said. “Sports is what brings people together. Hershey is what brings people together.”

He continued: “To kick this off isn’t just about the Olympics and the World Cup, but those moments on a global stage are when everyone rises to this camaraderie.”