As brands gear up for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, one of the most recognisable chocolate brands is choosing to redefine what “winning” looks like on sport’s biggest stage.
With its new Olympic-linked platform, The Hershey Company shifts the narrative away from podiums and performance metrics toward something quieter: emotional reward, personal support systems and everyday moments of happiness. The campaign launches ahead of the 2026 games, marking the brand’s first major creative reset in nearly a decade.
Developed with The Martin Agency, the work deliberately avoids familiar Olympic tropes of triumph, sacrifice and gold-medal obsession. Instead, it features five Team USA athletes, Brenna Huckaby, Erin Jackson, Hilary Knight, Jason Brown and Jordan Stolz, not in moments of competition, but in reflections shaped by family, routine and long-term emotional support.
Rather than asking what athletes want to win, the storytelling is built around what their families hoped for them along the way. The result is content that foregrounds relationships and emotional continuity, positioning elite sport as a human journey rather than a results table.
Strategically, the approach reflects a wider recalibration in sports marketing. After years of hyper-performance narratives, particularly amplified by social media and streaming culture, brands are increasingly interrogating whether constant emphasis on victory still resonates with audiences under economic, social and psychological pressure.
For Hershey’s, the answer appears to be no. The campaign’s core message suggests that happiness is not a by-product of winning, but a parallel value, one that exists before, during and after competition. In doing so, the brand aligns itself less with elite outcomes and more with shared emotional experience, a positioning that mirrors broader shifts in consumer expectations of legacy brands.
The creative idea extends into physical brand expressions through limited-edition chocolate medals wrapped in gold foil. Crucially, these are framed not as replicas of athletic achievement, but as symbolic markers of “everyday wins”, personal milestones, small celebrations and moments of connection.
Distribution plans include in-person giveaways at Hershey’s Chocolate World and Times Square, followed by broader availability through brand-owned channels and social commerce. The mechanics are simple, but the intent is clear: to translate an abstract emotional message into a tangible, shareable object without turning it into a trophy narrative.
While the Olympic opening ceremony will serve as the broadcast debut, the campaign is designed as a longer-term brand platform rather than a Games-only activation. According to the company, it will run throughout 2026 across social, digital and broadcast environments, supported by MiltonOne and Publicis Groupe unit that includes MSL and Digitas.
This long-arc thinking is notable. Instead of treating the Olympics as a high-impact burst, Hershey’s is using the moment as a cultural entry point for a wider repositioning of its flagship brand, one that continues into other national and global moments later in the year.
