![\"\"](\"https:\/\/colonygroup.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/12\/Tracey-La-Spina-300x198.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Tracey La Spina – Managing Partner – Colony Group<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d told me that a Cadbury Pascall Clinker – a lolly older than most brands in supermarket aisles-would become the must-have<\/em> item for my 10-year-old\u2019s Class Christmas Party, I would have laughed.<\/p>\n But then came the TikTok trend.<\/p>\n Suddenly, Clinkers<\/em> weren\u2019t just a nostalgic treat. They were a cultural moment. A status symbol. A conversation starter. And, apparently, the deciding factor in something as serious as who my daughter was going to marry-depending entirely on the colour she bit into.<\/p>\n As a mum, I was bemused.\u00a0 As a marketer, I was fascinated.<\/p>\n Because the moment I found myself visiting four supermarkets, all completely sold out, and then being told to come back Thursday on restock day<\/em>, which my daughter insisted we did – I recognised something very powerful.<\/p>\n A brand doesn\u2019t need to be new to become newly relevant.<\/p>\n And sometimes, the spark that reignites a brand isn\u2019t a multi-million-dollar campaign, a product extension, or a shiny new collaboration.<\/p>\n Sometimes\u2026 it\u2019s a 10-second TikTok video and a generation discovering something for the first time.<\/p>\n Here are the top 3 things we can learn from this example, a timely reminder for every Brand Leader:<\/p>\n Marketers often chase the next flavour, the next SKU, the next seasonal twist. Teams spend fortunes on R&D, innovation pipelines, and \u201cthe next big thing,\u201d hoping something will break through.<\/p>\n But Clinkers didn\u2019t change a thing.<\/p>\n The world simply paid attention again, and that attention came from the audience, not the brand.<\/p>\n Just a simple, silly, delightful trend about guessing the colour inside the shell of a lolly\u2026 and a generation turning it into social currency.<\/p>\n When a 10-year-old starts making decisions about friendships and future husbands, based on the inside colour of a Clinker, you know you\u2019re witnessing a brand moment money can\u2019t buy.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s the kicker: Marketing teams can invest millions trying to create this moment through product reinvention\u2026 when what often works is simply reinventing the marketing instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Clinkers craze proves that in the modern marketing ecosystem:<\/p>\n As brands, we don\u2019t always need to push<\/em> harder.\u00a0 Sometimes, we need to listen<\/em> better.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s where many brands get it wrong:<\/p>\n They try to manufacture virality through overly produced influencer content, scripted \u201cUGC,\u201d or glossy campaigns pretending to be organic.\u00a0 But consumers can spot a contrived activation a mile away.<\/p>\n What worked for Clinkers was the opposite, pure authenticity.\u00a0 Real kids. Real reactions. Real play. No brief. No polish. No performance.<\/p>\n Because when you understand how people naturally play<\/em>, share<\/em>, create<\/em>, and interact<\/em> with your product in the real world, you unlock the power of real influence:<\/p>\n These aren\u2019t just outcomes.\u00a0 They\u2019re accelerants.<\/p>\n And they happen when marketing, creator or influencer content feels genuinely organic<\/em>, not orchestrated.\u00a0 When the brand amplifies culture instead of trying to force it.\u00a0 When the audience leads – and the brand follows.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We don\u2019t always need massive production costs and huge advertising budgets to re-ignite brand interest. Creating currency amongst a generation of non-users is about \u2018tapping into\u2019 their cultural world\u2019. Putting the power in the audiences\u2019 hands to drive authentic, real brand connections and variability momentum.<\/p>\n The fun and more cost effective the ideation, the happier people are to play along, including me! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n Today\u2019s world belongs to brands that can move with culture, not behind it.<\/p>\n Because virality isn\u2019t random.\u00a0 It\u2019s architected.\u00a0 It\u2019s nurtured.\u00a0 It\u2019s engineered through understanding.<\/p>\n And as the Clinkers craze proves: The simplest ideas often spark the loudest results.<\/p>\n At Colony, our creative, digital and social teams work at the intersection of cultural signals, platform mechanics, and human behaviour generating ideas & marketing plans centred around what works in the New World!<\/p>\n Your brand is never too old, too familiar, or too \u201ctraditional\u201d to become the hero again.<\/p>\n Embrace it, ignite it! Light up your brand power! 2026 is the year to start doing things differently! Talk to your agency, or reach out and challenge us, to help you!<\/p>\n Sometimes, what you truly need is:<\/p>\n Give your product back to the audience.\u00a0 Let them play with it.\u00a0 Let them reinvent it.\u00a0 Let them make it theirs.<\/p>\n Because they will, and when they do, it will spread faster than any ad campaign you could buy. All you need to do is use your dollars to amplify<\/em> the spread.<\/p>\n And for those wondering\u2026<\/p>\n Yes, after a week of searching, I finally found three bags of Clinkers.<\/p>\n And yes, my daughter was ecstatic<\/em>.<\/p>\n But the marketer in me?\u00a0 I was equally thrilled.<\/p>\n Because this wasn\u2019t just a lolly hunt.\u00a0 It was a powerful reminder:<\/p>\n Brand magic doesn\u2019t always come from us. Sometimes, it comes from the audience who love the product enough to bring it back to life. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Tracey La Spina – Managing Partner – Colony Group If you\u2019d told me that a Cadbury Pascall Clinker – a lolly older than most brands in supermarket aisles-would become the must-have item for my 10-year-old\u2019s Class Christmas Party, I would have laughed. But then came the TikTok trend. Suddenly, Clinkers weren\u2019t just a nostalgic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n