PENNY · Saint Elmo's · Germany · June to September 2026
On TikTok, the comments are often funnier than the video. The people who write them get likes and nothing else. German discounter PENNY thought that was underpaying them. From June to September, its Comment Coupons scored witty comments with AI and paid the best in supermarket vouchers worth up to €50. It's a coupon scheme in which the currency is a good joke.
The Challenge
PENNY's brand platform is "Echte Freude", real joy in everyday life. The discounter wanted to make that platform credible on TikTok, where its posts compete with creators and much of the entertainment happens underneath, in the comments.
What They Did
From 1 June, TikTok users could tag PENNY under their favourite comment, whether or not the comment had anything to do with PENNY. A purpose-built AI system scored each one on likes, replies and how entertainingly it played off the original post, then matched the score to a voucher worth €10, €25 or €50. By late September, PENNY reported that more than 4,000 comments had earned coupons worth around €45,000. In the final fortnight, digital billboards in eight cities, including Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich, displayed rewarded comments.
Why It Works
TikTok rewards the people who post videos. Commenters, who often supply the punchline, get a heart at best. PENNY stepped into that gap with the thing it has in abundance: groceries. My favourite detail is that comments did not need to mention PENNY. The brand paid for joy itself, which is exactly what "Echte Freude" claims to stand for. The billboards then gave commenters the one thing the platform never offers them: top billing.
Creative Deviance: Category Breaking
PENNY hands them out for jokes. Breaking that convention lets PENNY prove its platform rather than claim it: the reward goes to people who made strangers laugh, so every coupon is a small piece of evidence for "real joy".
The Tactic
Powerful Hero → Credit the Overlooked Contributor
What to Steal
Pay the people who already do your marketing. Every brand on TikTok relies on commenters to make its posts travel. PENNY found them, priced their work at €10 to €50 and put their words on billboards. Look for the unpaid contributors in your own category before you hire new ones.
The Question That Could Get You There
Who is already part of the story but rarely gets the spotlight?
Or, more pointedly: whose unpaid contribution keeps our category entertaining, and what could we pay them in?
