“Every Kiss Begins with Kay” is one of the most recognizable taglines in advertising history, but it has always been associated with heterosexual love and was beginning to lose its cultural relevance.
For Pride 2020, Kay saw an opportunity to reposition itself by evolving their iconic tagline to stand for all kinds of love.
#EveryKiss was first launched as a small social initiative on National Kiss Day, a week before Pride Sunday, to celebrate Pride and show that when Kay says “every kiss,” they mean, every, single, kiss. And, it was particularily poignant because the LGBTQIA+ community still feels inhibited with outward displays of affection.
The challenge however, for 2021, was to find a high impact opportunity that could launch #EveryKiss in a much bigger way, was culturally powerful, and resonated with a much larger audience.
The New Year’s Eve Times Square Ball Drop is one of the most iconic events in America and the tradition of sharing a kiss at midnight provided the perfect opportunity.
On the big night, with the world watching, our Kay influencers hosted the Time Square Ball Drop and showed off their Kay engagement rings. Then, just before the clock struck 12, Jonathan and Jaymes sparked a movement, inviting the millions watching to join the #EveryKiss challenge by creating a TikTok of every kiss that brought them to this moment, New Year’s Eve 2022.
The strategy was a phased approach, leveraging a live-broadcast event + social/influencer activation:
-We tapped into an iconic cultural moment & talent associated with the Times Square broadcast streamed live to millions of viewers, translating the excitement and energy of a live, real-life event into a social call-to-action that maximized cultural relevance for the brand.
-We seamlessly integrated the brand by leveraging authentic relationships with current brand advocates announcing the Hashtag challenge during the most viewed portion of the last hour counting down to midnight.
-We partnered with Time Square Alliance as the Official Sponsor of the New Year’s Kiss and collaborated with TikTok to launch a Hashtag Challenge inviting creators to post “#EveryKiss."
-We worked closely with our key influencers (i.e., Jonathan Bennett, official host of the Times Square NYE Ball Drop & his fiancé Jaymes Vaughan) to lead the call-to-action and drive awareness of the #challenge.
By far, the #EveryKiss challenge has set a new precedence for being the top performer in the Retail Jewelry Category and also one of the strongest performers ever in the overall Retail Category.
The new contemporized Kay jingle, used over a million times, has now become a big song on TikTok.
3.3BN views in 3 days (Exceeding benchmark by 23%) and currently 12BN views and counting.
83.1M unique reach (Exceeding benchmark by 10M)
2.3M videos created (41% over benchmark)
1.2M unique creators
