the task
When a brand is brand new, reach alone isn’t enough. You need people who actually believe in what you’re selling. For The Hungry Boar and its Sticklers, that meant finding real fans, getting the product into their hands, and letting them do the talking.
The Hungry Boar launched in March 2025, which meant building a community entirely from scratch. Working with content creators was a central part of how we did that.
Our goal was simple: find creators who aligned with The Hungry Boar’s bold, playful spirit, get Sticklers into their hands, and let their authentic reactions do the talking. From there, we wanted those voices to reach new audiences and lay the foundations for long-term brand credibility.
the solution
We built a two-tier influencer strategy combining gifted and paid creator partnerships, spread across the year to support different stages of brand growth. Both tiers were built around the same idea: real content, from people who meant it.
The gifted campaign prioritised authenticity above all else. We invited creators to receive Sticklers and share their reactions entirely on their own terms. No scripts, no forced messaging. The result was a wave of genuine, personality-led content from people who became real fans of the product once they tried it.
Alongside this, a targeted paid campaign allowed us to work more closely with a smaller group of carefully selected creators across Instagram and TikTok, chosen for their engaged audiences and ability to deliver content that felt native to their platforms and true to The Hungry Boar’s tone.
the results
Influencer marketing played a key role in building brand awareness and credibility during Sticklers’ first year. The programme delivered a combined reach of over two million, strong video view numbers, and an above-average engagement rate – alongside a meaningful uplift in mailing list sign-ups driven by the gifted campaign.
That campaign also generated dozens of verified Trustpilot reviews from real customers who tried the product off their own back. For a new brand still building its reputation, that kind of social proof carries genuine weight.
The approach worked because it was rooted in genuine product love rather than paid reach alone. By combining grassroots creator seeding with targeted paid partnerships, we were able to give Sticklers a credible introduction to market and build the kind of early community that supports long-term growth.
