How Nerds Gummy Clusters became a nearly $750 million brand and what’s next

Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and Usher might have stolen the show at last year’s Super Bowl—but inside the ad breaks, it was the candy category that dominated with a blitz of ads for sugary treats. When it comes to sales, however, one brand posted the highest score—Nerds, which used its Big Game debut to fuel the momentum of its Gummy Clusters. The Ferrara-owned brand is back in the game this year, aiming to extend its winning marketing streak that propelled it to the top of a new list of fastest-growing established brands published by Numerator. Gummy Clusters—which debuted in 2020 and consists of bite-sized gummy balls covered with mini Nerds—is benefitting from numerous trends, including a shift to non-chocolate candy, especially by Gen Z consumers obsessed with gummies. The brand has fed that love with smart marketing, including a heavy emphasis on digital and social platforms. NextGen Marketing Summit Join us for a crash course on Gen Z, DTC marketing and the creator economy Register today Total market sales of all Nerds products increased 48.3% to $869 million in 2024—with Gummy Clusters accounting for nearly 85%, according to Katie Duffy, VP of global brands at Ferrara. “They are driving the Nerds brand, for sure,” she said of Gummy Clusters. While Nerds has not revealed details about this year’s Super Bowl ad, which will again come from Digitas Chicago, its goal is to drive even more awareness for Clusters. Nerds’ household penetration grew by 4.3 points following the 2024 Super Bowl and is now slightly above 25%. Still, that remains shy of the estimated 50% penetration achieved by leading chocolate brands, as Duffy noted. “There is plenty of white space opportunity for us to continue to grow,” Duffy said. “The way to get the most exposure for the brand writ large is through the Super Bowl.” Now, Nerds is eager to build upon the sales bump it saw in 2024, when its “Flashdance”-inspired Super Bowl spot starred a large anthropomorphic gummy dancing to Irene Cara’s “Flashdance … What a Feeling.” The gummy pulled a chain to recreate the 1983 movie’s famous water scene, instead getting showered in Nerds candies. The boom in Nerds Gummy Clusters reflects a larger trend among consumers buying non-chocolate candy. Dollar sales of chocolate candy rose 0.5% for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 29, according to Circana data. That compares to a 5% spike for non-chocolate candy. Shifting candy preferences have been driven, in part, by rising cocoa prices that have made chocolate more expensive (although prices have moderated some of late, as chocolate demand slows). The Hershey Co.—known for iconic chocolate brands such as Hershey’s and Reese’s—boosted its non-chocolate portfolio with the 2024 debut of Shaq-A-Licious XL Gummies, oversized gummy candies shaped like Shaquille O’Neal’s face that are meant to “rekindle the joy of childhood in adults alike,” according to the company. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shaq-A-Licious XL Gummies (@shaqalicious_official) Japanese chewy, fruity candy brand Hi-Chew has also benefited from Gen Z’s love of non-chocolate candy. Its line of more exotic flavors, including key lime, strawberry ice cream and blue Hawaiian, has been such a hit with younger consumers that Hi-Chew created its first mascot, Chewbie, to help make social media content and drive sales. Gen Z is also eating more gummies as they look for different flavors and textures that can’t be found in chocolate.Read more about generational marketing trends “Non-chocolate flavor profiles can do so much more,” said Sally Lyons Wyatt, global executive VP and chief advisor for consumer goods and foodservice insights at Circana. “They can be chewy or crunchy, sweet or sour. Non-chocolate has embraced other forms and flavors and Gen Z likes that new experience so the category has found growth.” Social media has also driven candy consumption. There are several candy shops with millions of followers, such as Logan’s Candies in California, that show off how they hand-make their candy. Also popular are ASMR-style videos in which people fill trays and tubs with gummies based on a theme, such as all blue candies, or SpongeBob-related candies. And there are influencers who rack up millions of views on videos of them eating different candies. @gracemarywilliams Replying to @lizzy Trying a bunch of pink themed candy/snacks!🩷🫶🏻😱✨🍬 What color should I do next?? #candy #candyreview #candytok #snacks #snackreview #mukbang ♬ original sound - gracemarywilliams Wyatt also pointed out that non-chocolate candies can be a cheaper way for consumers to treat themselves and their kids. “There’s the reward for good grades, the soccer team win, or they make a good potty-training treat because they aren’t sticky and don’t melt like chocolate,” she said. Clusters for every occasion Nerds will have a smaller set of candy brands to compete against during Super Bowl 2025, putting the brand top of mind for Valentine’s Day, which falls the Friday after the game. Reese’s is the only other candy brand that has confirmed an in-game ad, whereas six sweets brands appeared in last year’s Big Game. Nerds has embraced marketing around holidays by changing the colors of the Nerds surrounding the gummy clusters. The goal is to show how the candy can fit into different occasions, according to Duffy. For example, the Valentine’s Day-themed Clusters out now are covered in pink, red and white Nerds. Halloween Clusters were white, purple and orange; Christmas “frosty” Clusters were red, white and green; Easter Clusters are blue, yellow, pink and red.Also: Ferrara launches holiday candy salad kits View this post on Instagram A post shared by NERDS (@nerdscandy) Along with traditional candy aisle packs, Nerds works to add secondary displays for those shoppers who might skip that aisle but enjoy browsing seasonal sections. “Making sure that the brand is available for consumers in all different occasions is really important,” Duffy said. “People will often go down the seasonal aisle to simply see what’s new for celebrating the seasons writ large. And that can be a moment where our seasonal products have a limited-time availability and the sense of, ‘I have to get it while I can.’” The tactic seems to be working, as evidenced by the Numerator ranking, which examined the fastest-growing “established brands,” defined as those purchased by at least a quarter of U.S. consumers in 2024. Nerds beat out Fairlife milk, Ghirardelli, Kleenex and Tillamook, which were also on the list. Creating a new candy The original Nerds were created in 1983 when the brand was still part of the Willy Wonka portfolio. The brand was acquired by Nestlé in 1988 and then fell under Ferrara in 2018 after it acquired Nestlé USA’s confectionery business. Nerds Gummy Clusters take inspiration from Nerds Rope—a gummy string that is coated in Nerds. The product, which rolled out in 2001, was a new eating experience, but also a messy one—biting off a bit of rope could make the Nerds come off. @nerdscandy Oh wait… #fyp #5reasonswhy #nerdsrope ♬ bounce (i just wanna dance) - фрози & joyful “We looked at Nerds rope and asked how we could modernize it,” Duffy said. “What if we found a way to take the gummy component, coat it in Nerds, and make it more of an easier, straightforward, poppable eating experience?” Ferrara then created Baby Nerds to cover the gummy center and make them edible in one bite. It also added additives including gum arabic to prevent the Nerds from getting soggy, according to The Wall Street Journal. Nerds Gummy Clusters were not a great success in initial research and development tests. Consumers who saw concept images and a description still did not understand the candy, with some thinking it would be like a hard granola cluster. Rather than listen to the data, Ferrara pushed ahead, thinking that consumers would like the product once they tasted it. One key piece was learning that it needed to show the gummy center on the packaging. The brand also received good feedback when it shared prototypes of the clusters with retailers, Duffy said. “There was so much excitement on behalf of the retail buying community at those early stages that we just knew that we had something special, because, of course, they’re seeing innovations from the competition too,” she said. Marketing a hit Nerds Gummy Clusters rolled out in 2020, at a time when many consumers were still confined, but had disposable income to spend. Going forward with a new product may have given Nerds a leg up, said Circana’s Wyatt. “During Covid, innovation shut down for a lot of brands,” she said. “But those who were quick to get back into it, like Nerds, had a first-mover advantage. Younger consumers especially were looking for something surprising and I think Nerds delivered.” At the time, Nerds did very little marketing around the brand. Ferrara spent just $25,000 in U.S. measured media on Nerds Gummy Clusters in 2020, according to data from MediaRadar, and that fell to just $12,000 in 2021. And yet the candies were flying off the shelf. Nerds Gummy Clusters generated $8 million in annual sales in 2020. Sales soared to $98 million in 2021, $259 million in 2022 and $472 million in 2023, and surpassed $736 million last year, according to Ferrara. “We were growing so quickly that it didn’t make sense to invest dollars to fuel the fire when the product was already turning so quickly,” Duffy said. The takeoff seems to trace back in part to Kylie Jenner, who posted about how much she loved the candies in 2021 to her then-200 million Instagram followers. To meet demand, Ferrara had to reconfigure some of its factories and increase the manufacturing capacity of Nerds by 350%, according to the Wall Street Journal. With supply more evenly matching demand, Ferrara invested more in marketing. By 2024, Ferrara had spent $23 million on U.S. measured media for Gummy Clusters before Halloween. The brand has continued to enjoy several organic celebrity associations. The Kelce brothers touted them on their podcast as a favorite candy last year. Rapper Lil Wayne has been spotted with the candies at the U.S. Open and basketball games. New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner is a fan, as is the Seattle Mariners’ Julio Rodriguez. As Nerds Gummy Clusters popularity boomed, Ferrara found that the target audience for the brand also shifted. Duffy said that the brand originally viewed its target audience as millennial households with kids because millennials grew up with the original Nerds. Now, the focus is Gen Z. “Nerds has had such new momentum and new life because it’s uniquely relevant now to younger consumers in a way that it just wasn’t when we first purchased the brand,” Duffy said. For Ferrara, that has meant more investment in paid social media and creators, as well as e-commerce and in-store displays. It does not run TV campaigns, save for during and around the Super Bowl. Instead, Duffy says the brand runs paid social ads on TikTok, Meta platforms, YouTube and audio. The brand has also done some out-of-home advertising. In April and May of last year, Nerds partnered with National CineMedia theaters to run on-screen and lobby ads to encourage theatergoers to buy the treats before showtime. Theaters in New York and Chicago got a life-size holographic Gummy from the Super Bowl spot in the lobby. According to the brand, Nerds has tripled the number of retailers with whom it places paid e-commerce ads and has a dedicated team that focuses on digital shelves to ensure it has relevant products for consumers. In-store displays are up 70% year-over-year, according to Greg Guidotti, Ferrara’s chief marketing officer. (Nerds is not an official NFL sponsor, so its displays don’t have “Super Bowl” on them.) Current displays are part of Nerds’ recent “Make the Rivalry Sweeter” campaign, which links the brand to football season in hopes that customers make them part of their game day spread. The strategy is similar to that of Pop-Tarts, which has worked to recast its pastries as a snacking option, not just an on-the-go breakfast. Nerds’ football campaign asked fans if they preferred its classic grape and strawberry or the new red, white and blue “berry punch rush” flavor. @nerdscandy Be the real MVP of the watch party and bring Gummy Clusters 🏈🥳 #fyp #nerdscandy #gummyclusters #nerdclusters #watchparty #partysnacks #partyideas #candytok ♬ Winning - ROKKA It’s not yet clear if Nerds’ upcoming Super Bowl ad will be a continuation of that campaign. The spot will “take viewers on a multi-sensorial experience, both visually, musically, and tastefully,” the brand stated. “One of the most remarkable things to me is the amount of mentions we get on social media from people who say they aren’t even big candy consumers, but love the product,” said Duffy. “It’s interesting to see that the brand is not just resonating within the candy category, but in the total world of snacking.” Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Click here

How Nerds Gummy Clusters became a nearly $750 million brand and what’s next

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