Starburst's Ask the Universe campaign partnered with SpaceSpeak to beam TikTok videos into space, marking the first time a brand transmitted TikToks beyond
ARCHIVEStarburst Beams Fan Videos Into Space With Ask the Universe
Starburst's Ask the Universe campaign is a six-week TikTok participation initiative launched in the United States on September 6, 2022, in which fans were invited to create videos posing the question "How do they make Starburst taste so juicy?" to outer space, with the most creative submissions physically beamed into space via a first-of-its-kind brand partnership with SpaceSpeak.
The campaign represents a deliberate evolution of Starburst's long-running "Unexplainably Juicy" brand platform, which had been in market for more than eight years before this 2022 refresh. Developed in partnership with DDB, Ask the Universe reframes the brand's signature absurdist logic — the inexplicable nature of Starburst's juiciness — as a genuine cosmic inquiry. Rather than providing an answer, the campaign leans into the mystery, enlisting fans as amateur extraterrestrial communicators and positioning the candy itself as a wonder worthy of universal investigation.
Participation ran from September 6 through October 14, 2022, in the United States. Fans used the hashtag #BeamItUpStarburst on TikTok to submit their entries, employing whatever form of communication they believed might resonate with potential higher life forms. The most imaginative videos were selected and transmitted into space through SpaceSpeak, making Starburst the first brand ever to beam TikTok videos beyond Earth. Participants could also visit starburst.com/AskTheUniverse, enter their TikTok handle, and track their video's journey through space in real time. According to SpaceSpeak, the transmitted videos travel at the speed of light, passing through the entire solar system within the first day of transmission. The campaign carried a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100, reflecting its structural originality and cross-platform mechanics.
ARCHIVEStarburst identifies Gen Z as the audience most engaged with space exploration and cosmic curiosity. Among Gen Z consumers in the United States, 63% express interest in space, compared to a 49% average across all US adults, making the extraterrestrial framing of Ask the Universe a strategically precise choice rather than a tonal accident. Martin Terwilliger, Marketing Director at Mars Wrigley, stated, as reported by Marketing Dive and The Drum, that "Gen Z and Millennials' interest in space is only growing" and that the campaign sits "squarely at the center of pop culture."
The strategic rationale connects audience insight to brand equity. Starburst's core proposition — that its juiciness is fundamentally unexplainable — has sustained the brand's creative identity since DDB Chicago introduced the "Unexplainably Juicy" platform. By 2022, the platform required refreshing to reach a younger cohort that consumes content primarily through short-form video and participatory social formats. TikTok's challenge mechanic, combined with the novelty of genuine space transmission, offered a participation loop unavailable to conventional advertising formats.
The confectionery market context in the United States reinforces the competitive stakes. According to confectionerynews.com, the US non-chocolate chewy candy segment grew 13.7% year-over-year in 2022, generating $4.83 billion in sales for the 52 weeks ending May 15, 2022. Within that landscape, as reported by confectionerynews.com, Mars Wrigley held nearly 25% of the non-chocolate chewy candy segment with just over $1.2 billion in sales. Starburst itself generated $366.5 million in US sales across the same period, ranking fifth among the top 20 non-chocolate chewy brands in the United States, per confectionerynews.com. The Ask the Universe campaign, with its TikTok-native architecture and space communication hook, was designed to consolidate and extend that position among a generation shaping long-term brand preference.
Starburst's Ask the Universe creative system operates across two distinct layers: a broadcast television spot and a participatory TikTok challenge built around the hashtag #BeamItUpStarburst. The television commercial debuted in early August 2022, ahead of the campaign's public launch, establishing the campaign's premise in the broader US media environment before directing audiences to the social participation mechanic.
The on-screen execution features humans alongside fruit people — visual characters consistent with Starburst's established absurdist creative universe — and extends the brand's tradition of using fantastical scenarios to dramatise the inexplicable nature of its juiciness. The spot frames the central question of the campaign — "How do they make Starburst taste so juicy?" — as something so profound it demands a cosmic audience, setting the imaginative tone that the TikTok challenge then hands to creators. On TikTok, participants were given creative latitude to invent their own form of extraterrestrial communication, making the audience both the medium and the message.
The campaign launched with the involvement of Kirsten Banks, an astrophysicist and space communications expert who goes by @astrokirsten on TikTok. Banks served as the opening influencer voice, lending scientific credibility and cultural relevance to the campaign's space inquiry premise. Her participation grounded the extraterrestrial conceit in a recognisable, trusted figure within the science communication community on TikTok. The campaign was supported by Spark Ads and sequential advertising on TikTok, ensuring the challenge mechanic reached beyond organic discovery. The partnership with SpaceSpeak — the technology partner responsible for transmitting selected videos into space at the speed of light — functioned as the campaign's most distinctive production element, transforming user-generated content into a genuinely novel act of space communication. DDB developed the full campaign architecture in partnership with Starburst's parent company, Mars Wrigley.
No independently verified post-campaign performance figures for Ask the Universe — such as TikTok video submission counts, hashtag reach, or lift in US sales attributable to the campaign — are publicly available from named third-party sources. What can be assessed is the campaign's structural effectiveness within the context of the US confectionery market and Starburst's brand positioning objectives.
The mechanic itself carries measurable novelty. Starburst became the first brand to beam TikTok videos into space, a verifiable first-mover claim that generated press coverage across outlets including Marketing Dive, The Drum, Hypebeast, and Snack and Bakery, extending the campaign's earned media footprint well beyond paid TikTok placement. The real-time space-tracking feature at starburst.com/AskTheUniverse created an additional owned-channel engagement loop, extending time-on-site and repeat visits beyond the initial video submission.
Martin Terwilliger, Marketing Director at Mars Wrigley, described the campaign as "leaning into a playful brand insight in a new and refreshed way," as reported by Marketing Dive and thedailydoseofdigital.com, signalling that the primary internal metric was brand repositioning toward Gen Z rather than short-term sales conversion. The six-week participation window, combined with Spark Ads and sequential advertising, is consistent with a campaign architecture designed to build sustained awareness across a defined cohort rather than drive a single transactional moment. The Ask the Universe campaign earns a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100, reflecting strong conceptual originality, a genuinely differentiated media partnership, and a TikTok participation structure well-matched to its target audience, offset by limited publicly documented outcome data.
Ask the Universe is a 2022 Starburst TikTok campaign developed by DDB in the United States. Fans used #BeamItUpStarburst to submit videos asking how Starburst tastes so juicy, with selected entries transmitted into space via SpaceSpeak, marking the first time a brand beamed TikTok videos beyond Earth.
SpaceSpeak transmitted selected fan TikTok videos into space at the speed of light. Starburst was the first brand to use SpaceSpeak for TikTok transmission. Participants could track their video's journey in real time at starburst.com/AskTheUniverse, with videos passing through the entire solar system within the first day of transmission.
Kirsten Banks is an astrophysicist and space communications expert known on TikTok as @astrokirsten. She served as the launch influencer for Ask the Universe, lending scientific credibility to the campaign's extraterrestrial premise and helping introduce the #BeamItUpStarburst challenge to Gen Z audiences in the United States.
Gen Z shows stronger interest in space than the broader US population, with 63% expressing space curiosity versus a 49% US average. Starburst and DDB identified this cohort as the primary growth audience for the brand's refreshed platform, using TikTok's participatory format to meet Gen Z on their preferred channel.
The Ask the Universe participation period ran for approximately six weeks in the United States, from September 6 through October 14, 2022. The campaign was supported by Spark Ads and sequential advertising on TikTok, while the television commercial had debuted separately in early August 2022 ahead of the social launch.
Unexplainably Juicy is Starburst's long-running creative platform, introduced by DDB Chicago and active for more than eight years before the 2022 refresh. Ask the Universe retains the core premise — that Starburst's juiciness defies explanation — while updating the delivery through TikTok participation, space communication, and creator collaboration aimed at Gen Z.
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