Kind this week became one of the first snack brands to create a presence on TikTok—a sign that the video-creation platform is extending beyond fashion and entertainment and becoming a place for everyday brands. 

On Wednesday, Kind launched a three-week Hashtag Challenge—one of TikTok’s four ad products—to promote its new Simple Crunch Bars, which hit shelves this past summer. The idea is simple enough: users can post videos emphasizing the bar’s crunch with the hashtag #kindsimplecrunchcontest, and can choose to incorporate Giphy stickers that Kind created for the challenge. The user whose video gets the most plays will receive a free trip to New York and a year’s supply of Kind Simple Crunch Bars. Kind links details about the contest in its bio on the platform, similar to how a brand would link out to a webpage on Instagram.

Jessica Goon, VP of digital marketing at Kind, says the hashtag has seen 18 million views since the challenge launched less than 24 hours ago (roughly 750,000 views an hour). Those numbers are encouraging for Kind as it navigates how users respond to the brand on the platform, says Goon. So far, only a handful of people have shared the hashtag, but Goon expects to see participation start to take off next week. 

Kind, on TikTok as @kindsnacks, was attracted to the platform because of its growing popularity and connection to its product. “One of the points of difference for the product is its crunch,” says Goon. “We were thinking about what made the product unique and different and leaning into sound, and it led us right to TiKTok. It’s one of the only places where people are listening to sound these days.”

Last month, TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world with 60 million installs, according to data from SensorTower, and 500 million users worldwide. The platform has mostly attracted entertainment brands like Radio Disney (1.5 million followers) and Netflix (575,400 followers). Kind is one of the first CPG snack brands to experiment on the platform. Others include Red Bull (3 million followers), Kit-Kat (101,200 followers) and Coca-Cola Japan (10,600 followers). 

To promote its Hashtag Challenge, Kind is working with TikTok influencers Zach King, Rachel Ryle, Oven Mom, Maddi Winter, Kombucha Girl and MeLou&Two to share their own videos for the contest, highlighting the crunch of the bars in fun ways. Zach King (@zachking), who has 24.6 million followers, shared a humorous animated post that saw 2.5 million likes since the challenge began. Maddi Winter (@maddiwinter), who has 661,400 followers, also shared an animated post that she says took her 10 hours to edit. Goon says the diversity of the influencers and the diversity of their followings impacted which influencers to hire for the campaign.

Since TikTok is still developing its advertising approach, Kind could keep prices low. Although Goon would not reveal pricing figures, she says advertising dollars were “virtually none,” besides influencer contracts, the terms of which Kind does not reveal. 

Kind produces the majority of its social content in-house, including post-production, with a 10-person team. TikTok content (@kindsnacks) is now part of that. Goon says Kind’s size and having an in-house social team were reasons the brand could start producing content for the platform so quickly. 

“A lot of other, bigger companies have to sell in to senior executive teams,” she says. I think as social media as an industry has grown up, brands are just a little more hesitant to break out, or may not have the resources. You’ve seen some fast food brands on [TikTok], some beauty brands, some celebrities. Once the celebrities join, that’s usually when you see the brands follow.” 

Kind founder Daniel Lubetzky, who says his kids are on the platform, quickly got on-board as well, says Goon. Lubetzky is actually featured in a few of the TikTok posts around the challenge, where he is seen dancing as his “unofficial entry” for the challenge.  

As far as the brand’s organic strategy goes, moving forward, Goon says it’s important to not just share content created for other social platforms, but content made specially for TikTok.

“It’s about leaning into the trends and using the sounds and doing what the community is doing,” Goon says. So far, the snack brand’s TikTok account has garnered 1,679 followers and 2,176 likes with seven videos.