When MrBeast, Logan Paul, and KSI launched Lunchly as a direct competitor to Kraft's Lunchables, they led with a single bold claim: our product is the healthier option.
The internet had opinions. Loud ones.
But here's the thing most marketers miss in moments like this: backlash and persuasion are not the same thing. Comments, shares, and heated debate tell you what people are talking about. They don't tell you whether anyone actually changed their mind.
So we ran the experiment.
The Question Worth Answering
Lunchly's entire go-to-market hinged on one perception shift: convincing parents that their packaged lunch was healthier than the incumbent. If the ad moved that needle, the backlash wouldn't matter. If it didn't, no amount of engagement would save it. We used ViewShift Lift to test this with 1,800 adult Americans, randomly assigned to one of three groups: the Lunchly ad, the most recent Lunchables ad, or a placebo message. Three clean experimental conditions. No guesswork. We measured category favorability, purchase intent, and perceived healthiness, the exact metric Lunchly was trying to own.
What The Data Revealed
The results were striking, and not in Lunchly's favor.
- The ad they were competing against outperformed them on every metric.
- The healthiness claim did the opposite of what it intended.