Hershey’s put its new Creme bars in front of a very specific audience on September 1, 2026, launching a campaign with global girl group KATSEYE. The aim was to give the line a more premium, youth-facing position. New YouGov BrandIndex data shows what happened next: ad awareness moved, but not evenly across generations.
What the data shows
YouGov BrandIndex measures Ad Awareness by asking U.S. adults whether they have seen an advertisement for a brand in the past two weeks. Among all U.S. adults, Hershey’s score stood at 14% on launch day, ticked up to 15% by September 10, reached 17% by September 20, and peaked at 18% on September 25. The month ended at 16%, two percentage points above the start.
Gen Z noticed most
The real story was in the generational split. Gen Z’s score started at just 6% on September 1, then jumped to 17% within the first week. It later rose to 20% on September 22 and peaked at 21% on September 25, the highest level recorded among any generation during the campaign window. By September 30, Gen Z sat at 19%, a 13-percentage-point gain.
Millennials fell from 15% to 9% in the first week before recovering to 15% by month-end. Gen X rose early, then declined to finish at 11%. Baby Boomers+ ended at 17%, up two points from launch.
Why this matters for marketers
A two-point national lift can look unremarkable in a dashboard. Breaking the same tracker by age group changes the read: the campaign delivered precisely the Gen Z attention Hershey’s wanted for a premium chocolate line. That makes the KATSEYE partnership look like a strong audience fit rather than a broad awareness play.
The pattern is a useful reminder that upper-funnel metrics should be read against the target segment, not just the total market. For brand teams, the takeaway is less about chocolate and more about how to read campaign data.
What to watch next
Ad awareness is a leading indicator, not a sales result. The next test is whether recall turns into trial, repeat purchase, and shelf presence for the Creme bars in a premium chocolate set that already has strong rivals. YouGov’s figures are two-week moving averages from daily surveys of U.S. adults between August 15 and September 30, 2026.
- Track ad awareness by generation, not just top-line total.
- Treat a first-week spike as a signal of partner and creative fit.
- Pair recall with purchase intent and trial data before judging ROI.
Source: yougov.com
