The Launch
The Hershey Company is expanding its confectionery lineup with Hershey's Creme Bars, a filled-chocolate format available in two varieties — Salted Caramel and Affogato — now at participating retailers nationwide. The move represents one of the brand's more pronounced bets on flavor premiumization within the $25 billion-plus U.S. chocolate confectionery market, where filled and layered formats have steadily outpaced plain milk chocolate growth.
The Salted Caramel bar pairs a caramel-flavored filling with milk chocolate in a 2.2 oz standard bar and an 8.4 oz snack-size pouch. The Affogato variant goes further: a dual-layer filling of espresso-flavored caramel and sweet vanilla creme encased in milk chocolate, a format designed to capture coffeehouse-adjacent consumer preferences that have driven strong attach rates for coffee-flavored snacks at retail. Retailer pricing is set at store discretion.
Marketing Strategy
To drive trial, Hershey has enlisted KATSEYE, a multi Grammy-nominated global girl group, as the campaign's centerpiece. The partnership reframes the group's signature "Pinky Up" gesture around the brand, with a commercial spot now live on YouTube. Katrina Vatter, Senior Brand Manager at The Hershey Company, described the positioning as linking product discovery to consumer self-expression — a strategy increasingly common among legacy confectionery brands competing for Gen Z attention against a crowded snack shelf.
Distribution support extends beyond traditional retail. Hershey has structured a separate partnership with Uber to surface the bars at culturally relevant moments when consumers are already on the move — a channel that has gained traction for impulse confectionery given high-frequency app engagement. Fall sampling events and pop-up activations are also planned, giving the brand a physical footprint to complement its digital push.
Competitive Context
The Creme Bar launch fits a broader confectionery trend toward indulgent, multi-texture formats that command a modest premium at shelf. Competitors including Mars and Mondelez have leaned into layered and filled formats in recent years — Reese's Caramel extensions, Cadbury Darkmilk — suggesting consumer appetite for complexity within a familiar brand framework. For Hershey, which reported more than $11.7 billion in annual revenue across its snack portfolio, new SKU launches in core confectionery remain a low-capital mechanism to defend share without meaningful capital expenditure.
The Affogato flavor in particular signals intent to compete on trading-up behavior: espresso-inflected confectionery has been a consistent growth driver at specialty and convenience channels alike. Coupled with the salted caramel variant — a now-established flavor that still indexes well on repeat purchase — Hershey is targeting a shopper who gravitates toward recognizable flavor cues with a slight point of difference. Retailers looking for confectionery innovation to anchor seasonal merchandising may find the dual-size format — standard bar plus snack pouch — a useful tool for both checkout and in-aisle placement strategies.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
