Dive Brief: 

• Gorton’s Seafood unveiled its new product line, Gorton’s Air Fried, with a multi-channel influencer marketing campaign centered on TikTok, per details shared with Marketing Dive. 
• For the effort, a series of content creators shared videos promoting the new product line. New content is set to roll out in the coming month and will span multiple platforms including Instagram Reels. It also launched a creator team of eight influencers, who will make exclusive content for TikTok. 
• Gorton’s will launch an augmented reality (AR) filter later this month. Off social media, the brand will run an ad spot on digital and connected TV (CTV) channels. 

Dive Insight: 

Gorton’s social-first approach sees the 170-year-old brand looking to strike a connection with Gen Z and millennials. Ahead of its latest campaign, the brand ran a strategic program to grow its social media following, amassing more than 65,000 followers on TikTok. Today, it has escalated to 90,000 followers. 

To build excitement for the air-fried product launch, Gorton’s enlisted a handful of creators, including Chef Ced and Alyssa in the Kitchen, among others, who posted teaser videos featuring the brand’s iconic yellow slicker coat. On launch day, many of the influencers incorporated the product into recipes, emphasizing that the products were already air fried, so the only appliance needed was an oven. 

Over the coming month, more content is expected to drop, including an AR filter that allows users to “try” Gorton’s Air Fried products by catching them in their mouths using the filter. Since launching the campaign, #gortonsairfriedlaunch has gathered over 68,000 views. Creators are increasingly becoming a marketing staple, with 66% of brands last year having upped their spend on such efforts.

Much of the new product’s line revolves around the convenience of already air-fried products, which could appeal to younger consumers looking for fast meal options. Off the phone screen, Gorton’s commercial promoting the new line emphasizes that convenience, riffing off the concept of air frying with dramatic gusts of wind rustling around indoors.

While the Gorton's campaign revolves around select products, the brand is also ramping up its ongoing social media efforts, creating its own content creator team, appropriately called Gorton’s Creator Team. The eight-person team will create content exclusively for the brand’s TikTok page, not to be shared elsewhere, as it looks to establish a more authentic and approachable presence on the app.