Sign in with Google When U.S. bakery chain Crumbl needed a new way to reach young women, its marketing team turned to influencer marketing agency Influential to strategize.
The team sought something much rarer than views: an online audience defined by brand-safe, family-friendly engagement. “We didn’t want to gamble on reach; we wanted precision,” said Cody Irizarry, EVP of strategic partnerships at Influential. Using Influential’s proprietary affinity data to index thousands of audiences, Crumbl chose Not Enough Nelsons, not just for the channel’s size but also for its audience composition and brand-safety profile.
While this influencer marketing strategy helped drive an impressive 100% positive or neutral sentiment, it was made possible by a trust-based partnership between brand and creator. Here’s how Crumbl achieved its business goals through the Nelsons’ authentic storytelling.
Look for a community, not just a creator
“Not Enough Nelsons,” a YouTube channel following the adventures of a family with 16 children, was the “perfect match,” said Irizarry. Their audience’s large segment of young women fit the brief. But more importantly, they had cultivated a community on YouTube that loved feel-good stories and, in return, promoted healthy, positive engagement.
“What really guided us here was starting with the audience first,” said Irizarry. “Crumbl wanted to show how easy their app is to use but through a story that felt warm, playful, and real. So we didn’t just pick a creator based on who’s trending this moment; we selected based on proof.”
To evaluate 15 million creators across platforms, the agency focused on three things: Who the creator reached, the strength (and sentiment) of their community engagement, and whether their content aligned with Crumbl’s fun, family-friendly brand identity. Not Enough Nelsons swept the competition on all three counts.
“Our solution is more than matching a creator to a brand. We matched a community to a moment,” said Irizarry.
Whether or not a marketer is working with an influencer marketing agency, they can find themes, products, and videos trending on YouTube through Insights Finder, and discover the best creators for their brand and campaigns in the creator partnerships hub.
Add branding that strengthens the story
Moving 2,930 miles away from home would be hard for any family, but for the Nelsons, it meant leaving a family tradition behind: the weekly Crumbl taste test.
Tiffany Nelson, the mom and mind behind the channel, said the campaign was even more successful than it could have been, because of her family’s longstanding love of the product. In the first sponsored video, the Nelson kids do their last Crumbl review in Utah. In the second, they showcase the Crumbl app’s utility for long-distance gifting by ordering cookies from Maui for their sibling back on the mainland.
Irizarry noted that, while other creator campaigns focus on product placement, the campaign made Crumbl part of the story itself. By including a shot of the interface, Crumbl was able to educate customers on how to use the app for long-distance gifting. “The brand wasn’t a cameo, it was a character in the story,” he said.
For Crumbl’s marketing leads, the opportunity to show real-life use cases was key, and they appreciated that the campaign would not be the first time a Crumbl box appeared on the channel. “The brand fit right into their life moments,” said Nicole Mackelprang, director of paid media at Crumbl. “It felt so organic because it fit right into their content.”
To connect, borrow creators’ hard-earned trust
Many marketers have learned that the more a creator does to earn their audience’s trust, the more its messaging resonates. Crumbl’s campaign was no exception.
According to Influential, the Nelsons’ gifting story drove a 7-point lift, netting 92% positive and 8% neutral sentiment, and beat benchmarks for the consumer packaged goods category. Crumbl marketing leads saw a marked difference between the solidly positive engagement on YouTube versus other platforms.
“It was really refreshing to see that you’re putting forward these very positive creators, and they’re getting very positive comments back,” said Ryken Dursteler, paid media specialist at Crumbl. With double the watch time of Crumbl’s other vertical content, the campaign also held viewers’ attention.
Crumbl’s campaign yielded more than 4 million impressions, including 3 million views and a 3.08% campaign average view engagement rate (1.1X over platform benchmark).
“The storytelling wasn’t ad-like,” said Mackelprang. “People wanted to watch to the end to see what happened.”
For Influential, the secret to that retention was a hands-off creative approach. The agency used proprietary tech to vet the Nelsons’ content health and brand safety signals upfront, allowing them to skip the rigid scripts that often stifle creator content. “We gave ‘Not Enough Nelsons’ clear parameters around what needed to come through for Crumbl, but then we stepped back and let them tell it their way,” said Irizarry.
Nelson hopes that as creator campaigns such as theirs find success, more brands will absorb the lesson that strict talking points can be counterproductive. “If brands can let the video be an authentic testimonial from the creator, it will change advertising for the better,” she said. “For the content creator, for the viewer, and for the brand.”
