Thank You!

Sometimes life surprises you in the best way. A Kynship client, M&M's, has been recognized as a CommerceNexty finalist. This honor recognizes individuals and companies that deliver breakthrough results in ecommerce and customer acquisition. Honestly, words can't describe what we are feeling right now.

CommerceNext selected our project as a finalist due to our awesome work with M&M’s for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. During one of the most strenuous and trying times in recent history, people were isolated, lonely, and struggling to stay connected. We seeded influencers on TikTok resulting in dozens of pieces of candid and heartwarming user generated content. We helped leverage the platform to find diverse and inclusive influencers and “help people feel included by championing fun.” The TikTok UGC generated over 5 million views and vastly outperformed traditional creative is paid social in A/B tests.

The result? M&M’s saw a 67% increase in sales of Mother’s Day gifts and a 457% increase in Father’s Day gifts compared to 2020

While recognition is amazing, this isn’t why we started Kynship or what matters to us most as business people. We simply wanted to do things differently and do them better. The industry at the time saw influencers as a commodity and just that. The content from these antiquated methods not only seemed disingenuous, it was expensive.

We had a plan to step into influencer marketing with a new lens. We wanted to be a part of making this budding industry more authentic and affordable with our method of  product seeding influencers and gathering unscripted and honest content. Frankly, when we told other people in the marketing world about our method of creating genuine engagement with genuine relationships with influencers they laughed. Not to our faces, but as the door was closing.

You know that feeling when you sense you are being placated? You exchange pleasantries and as you leave there's a distinct feeling on the back of your neck that can only be caused by the glaring of a cynical eye? The feeling that your ambition and calling is viewed by the “heavy hitters” as something “cute,” like a macaroni picture fit for the fridge and nowhere else. That's the feeling I’m talking about. It didn’t stop us from pushing forward.

Don’t get me wrong, I'm not writing this to craft prose that gives you all the Cinderella story feel good vibes. Do we want to win the big prize and take home #1? Of course we do! But in our minds we have won already. We’ve stood by our dream and watched it unfold. We did things “differently” and made an impact. We made our friends and family proud.

We want to take a moment to thank all of you who have made us a part of your lives both personally and professionally. Cody and I could have never imagined where our ambition and vision would take us; yet, here we are. Thank you for making our vision a reality. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for all of us.

Please feel free to vote for our M&M’s campaign here.

We are so grateful to you all.

Stay inspired,

Cody Wittick, Taylor Lagace, and the Kynship Team