The #SaveBaconHairs campaign was a reactive reaction to a moment in gaming culture which we identified using social listening that had a natural connection to one of Oscar Mayer’s product lines — bacon! It also aligned with the brand’s goal to make its purpose to spark smiles more resonant with a new generation by disrupting the everyday with simply joyful escapes rooted in today’s culture.
This space gave Oscar Mayer an opportunity to enter AND drive a conversation Roblox gamers were having online. We partnered with one of the most popular and recognizable Roblox influencers to get a younger target to engage with the legacy meat brand in a new, joyful way unlike ever before. Simply put, it gave Oscar Mayer a chance to spark smiles with a new target on existing and new channels.
Key Insights and Strategy
When popular online game, Roblox, announced it was removing Pal Hair as the default hair avatar for new players, gamers were outraged. Lovingly-dubbed “Bacon Hair” for its resemblance to the beloved food, being a “bacon” was a core part of Roblox culture — until its removal was snuck in as a part of a game update in the summer, 2023. It had been the default avatar for nine years.
However, for America’s favorite bacon, Oscar Mayer, Roblox’s attack on bacon served as an opportunity to drive the conversation, and action, while delivering on the brand purpose to spark smiles with a new generation by disrupting the everyday with a simply joyful escape.
So, we quickly launched our response to “the most disastrous decision” in the history of bacon gaming decisions in the most wonderfully-odd way by launching #SaveBaconHairs.
Concept/Big Idea
We launched a wonderfully-odd movement to engage and unite heated Roblox fans — providing them with simple, native, and joyful ways to protest the change and challenge Roblox’s decision to remove Bacon Hair. All our tactics were used to turn gamer’s anger into action as we turned every social engagement into a fun form of petition and protest.
Tactics
Knowing that we had to get our message out fast, we took a phased approach — concepting and adjusting our tactics as we went based on engagement, conversations, and learnings.
We kicked the campaign off by creating a Bacon Hairs Instagram filter — our own virtual version of Roblox’s Pal Hair — which fans could use to show their support on social. We partnered with one of the biggest Roblox influencers, Lana Rae. A bacon-hair supporter with 8+ million followers across TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, Lana helped galvanize gamers for our wonderfully-odd cause and helped launch the filter. With 80,200 filter uses, our movement gained traction — but Roblox was yet to respond. So we explored new ways to gain support.
Next, we infiltrated the largest gaming convention, TwitchCon, where we collected petition signatures to #SaveBaconhairs, handed out bacon hair wigs and protest signs, and captured content which we would use to call out Roblox. But more importantly, we connected with gaming streamers and influencers who later helped us spread our message to their followers. Their support had a halo effect as new fans and support flooded in via their Twitch streams and social channels.
We continued the fight for petitions on social with a handshake post featuring Lana. Once again, Lana garnered support from the gaming community prompting fans to drop a bacon emoji (🥓) in comments as a form of petition.
We also sparked a protest inside Roblox’s most popular game – Brookhaven – where fans demonstrated at town hall with virtual signs using Roblox characters.
Finally, we tallied all the signatures and put them on one, long physical scroll. Then we sent the scroll, along with boxes of Oscar Mayer bacon, to Roblox Headquarters to convince them to change their minds.
While Roblox is yet to give an official response, with 3.1M gamers reached, 4.2M total reach, 3.3M social views, over 277,000 signatures, 40,000 supportive comments, and a 7% increase in average bacon sales during the campaign — our love of bacon and joyful movement resonated with Roblox, and bacon, fans nationwide.
And with Roblox privately expressing their excitement over the support to Oscar Mayer, the return of Bacon Hairs looks promising.
