Crumbl

Discover how Crumbl leveraged Hive3, an AI platform with over 1500 creators, and sponsored a challenge to reinvent their existing cookie ads with a fresh and innovative social media campaign.

The Opportunity

Founded in 2017 in Utah, Crumbl Cookies is a rapidly growing bakery franchise known for it's fresh gourmet cookies in a rotating weekly menu. Its rise is unprecedented in the dessert space, an achievement made more remarkable by the fact that its core product is a simple, familiar one: cookies. Crumbl’s success stems from a business model that creates excitement through limited-time weekly menu drops, a robust social media presence (over 10 million TikTok followers), and a growth structure that attracts passionate franchisees rather than relying on mass recruitment. These factors have allowed Crumbl to dominate digital food culture while maintaining strong customer loyalty. At the time of this publication, Crumbl has expanded to over 1,000 locations across all 50 states and is beginning to grow internationally, with a viral following, especially among millennials and Gen Z.

In 2023, Crumbl leverage Hive3, our AI-powered creator platform, to reinvent their cookie advertisements through a sponsored challenge. Tapping into Hive3's community of over 1,500 creators, the creative brief challenged participants to explore engaging ad concepts with AI, while maintaining the brand's fun, indulgent essence and highlighting their use of high-quality ingredients—a strategic focus as Crumbl continued its nationwide expansion.

"The next frontier of marketing is generative AI."

Mai Pham

–

Crumbl Cookies
Former EVP of Growth

What we did

In just 5 days, over 250 unique campaign ideas were generated by the Hive3 community, with 3 top concepts awarded the prize pool. The high volume and breadth of ideas validated the power of AI-assisted collaborative ideation. The judging process for the submissions by Crumbl's executive team also yielded interesting insights about the integration of AI into a businesses' creative process. Some observations:

  • The creative submissions were highly reflective of the challenge brief, and thus prompted reflection upon the original design ask by Crumbl. When returning to the brief, executives realized what elements of the brief were truly "important" to them, and what could have been omitted to reduce creator confusion and misdirection
  • Executives ended up choosing winning designs that were extremely visually different from anything the brand had done before, and all three winners were also extremely visually different from each other. The breadth of creative submissions had allowed them to consider and explore new visual directions that they previously never would have considered.
  • While none of the challenge submissions were considered to be final, publishable assets, the winning submissions were leveraged as the base of new marketing campaigns that their teams could then execute upon.

“This challenge with Crumbl proved just how transformative human-AI collaboration can be. By opening up their creative process to our Forum3 community, Crumbl gained not only a flood of bold new ad concepts but also valuable insight into their brand’s evolving identity. It was a powerful example of how AI can spark strategic clarity and creative breakthroughs, fast.”

Adam Brotman

–

CEO, Forum3

The Outcome

Opening up ideation through human-AI collaboration allows brands to explore their visual potential while better understanding what creative guardrails best support their strategic needs. The insights gained help evolve brands in an authentic way. Key takeaways:

  • Leveraging generative AI facilitates access to fresh branding perspectives from a diverse talent pool, resulting in high volumes of innovative ideation.
  • The submission evaluation process provides an opportunity for brands to reflect on what creative elements are truly essential versus superfluous when conveying their core messaging and visual identity.
  • An influx of varied creative options allows brands to consider visual directions that may be new territory, but intriguing when viewed through the lens of AI and a community of creators.
  • While AI-generated assets are rarely fit for publication, they provide teams a head-start in the creative process
  • Brands can rapidly test the boundaries of their visual identities and creative positioning through AI co-creation. This informs future innovation that remains recognizable and on-brand.

The Crumbl x Hive3 collaboration demonstrates the transformative potential of AI-powered creative partnerships. By engaging a diverse community of creators through an AI platform, Crumbl gained access to hundreds of fresh perspectives that challenged their existing visual approach while remaining true to their brand essence. This process not only yielded innovative campaign concepts but also prompted meaningful reflection on their creative priorities and brand identity. As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, brands that embrace AI as a collaborative tool rather than a replacement for human creativity will discover new opportunities for authentic brand expression, accelerated ideation, and more meaningful customer connections. The success of this initiative underscores how AI-augmented creativity represents not just a technological advancement but a new frontier for strategic brand development.

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