For their first foray into frozen baked goods, Hostess introduced Deep-Fried Twinkies, available in the freezer section at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. We had a very, very small budget to work with (the brand was still recovering from their famous bankruptcy and had only recently made their “Sweetest Comeback in the History of Ever.”) We were entrusted with determining a very strong creative strategy for a digital/social campaign that would run for two weeks prior to the launch and then continue for a three-month period.

For their first foray into frozen baked goods, Hostess introduced Deep-Fried Twinkies, available in the freezer section at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. With a small budget and minimal time, I had to work very quickly to articulate a creative strategy and brief. The product had several negatives working against it: unhealthy food product, low yum appeal due to packaging considerations, incongruity of being frozen and also deep-fried. To ground the strategy in human insight, I explored consumer behaviors and sentiment toward deep-fried foods. This very colorful subject showed up as a cultural phenomenon, with one source noting that, despite the adverse health effects, it “borders on obsession”.