Advertising

King’s Hawaiian Captures Holiday Shopping Intent, Driving 44% Above-Benchmark Carting and 3x Industry-Average Engagement

1.15%

Carting rate, 44% above the grocery benchmark

3,833

Click-to-cart interactions

3.3M

Impressions delivered

A holiday campaign earns attention, but a shoppable one earns carts. From November 19 to December 21, 2025, King’s Hawaiian reached a custom audience of women ages 25 to 54 with children through holiday programming. The campaign gave them a click-to-cart path from the ad to their preferred retailer, designed to reduce friction and place products directly into the shopper journey at the moment of intent.

Watch the Story

The challenge

Turn audience interest into product action without interrupting the content experience

For King’s Hawaiian, the holidays are a sweet spot. From Thanksgiving feasts to Christmas gatherings and every shared meal in between, its signature sweet rolls bring a little extra warmth to the table. The season is a natural opportunity to connect with shoppers as they plan the meals that bring people together.

Awareness alone leaves the final step to chance. Holiday shoppers build lists, compare retailers and check availability within a short window. King’s Hawaiian needed to be present during those high-intent moments, with a direct path from inspiration to cart well before they start shopping.

The strategy

A signal-led audience and a shoppable format built to cut friction

Powered by Ray, Audience Path’s agentic operating system, the campaign used Mirrors to build a fuller picture of King’s Hawaiian’s target audience, women ages 25 to 54 with children. These profiles helped identify who was most engaged with holiday programming and concentrate delivery around the seasonal moments when meal planning and purchase intent were rising. Those audience signals were paired with a shoppable click-to-cart unit that moved viewers directly from the video to their preferred retailer. Engage AI analysis showed that the original creative’s humor and fast-paced storytelling generated strong sentiment, while the enriched experience strengthened product focus, branding, and the call to action. The landing page presented products and retailer options clearly, reducing the effort required to move from discovery to cart.

1
Discover the holiday shopper audience
2
Activate against relevant holiday programming
3
Add a shoppable click-to-cart experience
4
Simplify product and retailer selection

5
Measure media performance and carting behavior

The results

Ahead of market benchmarks on every measure that mattered

The campaign delivered 83% video completion rate, exceeding the 80% benchmark. And 95% viewability. In addition, the shoppable click-to-cart unit added a measurable commerce layer: 11.36% substitution rate and 0.35% CTR, exceeding the 0.20% benchmark The 11.36% substitution rate provides another sign of brand preference: when the featured 24-pack was unavailable, shoppers chose the 12-pack alternative rather than leaving the experience. In addition, retailer engagement revealed a clear preference: Walmart and Target accounted for 68% of all shoppable opens. For future campaigns, this points to an opportunity to prioritize these retailer pathways and test messaging around their pickup and delivery options. By combining signal-led audience targeting with a shoppable click-to-cart experience, King’s Hawaiian turned holiday attention into reaching the right audience on the right screen at the right moment, driving measurable commerce. The campaign demonstrates how CPG brands can move video beyond awareness by aligning the right audience, timing, and shopping experience to create a direct path from inspiration to cart.

1.15%

Carting rate, 44% above the grocery benchmark

3,833

Click-to-cart interactions

3.3M

Impressions delivered

$392

Completed carts value

Why this matters for CPG marketing

King’s Hawaiian’s holiday campaign shows how video can move beyond awareness metrics to bottom-funnel engagement when consumers are given a direct and convenient way to act on their interest.

Shoppable video connects inspiration to action

Adding a click-to-cart experience reduces the steps between seeing the product and beginning the purchase journey. Consumers can move directly from the creative to their preferred retailer while the message is still relevant.

Turning Holiday Attention Into Shoppable Action

Audience signals make media more relevant by helping brands reach consumers in the moments and environments most connected to purchase intent. For King’s Hawaiian, Audience Path aligned the campaign with holiday programming tied to seasonal meal planning, reaching shoppers as inspiration turned into action. Shoppable engagement peaked around Thanksgiving and rose again in the days before Christmas, reinforcing the importance of increasing media presence during final shopping windows when meal plans become immediate purchase needs. By combining traditional media results with shopping activity, marketers gain a more complete view of performance and a clearer understanding of how attention progresses toward consideration, action, and future campaign planning.

Key Takeaways

Use audience signals to improve relevance.
Identify where the target audience is most engaged and align delivery with the programming and moments that matter to them.
Keep the story central and the path to purchase clear.
Enriched creative strengthens product focus, branding and the call to action, while a shoppable click-to-cart experience connects viewers directly to their preferred retailer without a separate product search.

Measure what happens after attention.
Combine traditional media performance with landing page activity, carting behavior and purchase intent to understand how engagement moves toward commerce.
Align around key holiday tentpoles
to reach last minute shoppers in prioritized retail environments where engagement mattered most.