Things must be looking up. After a year of isolation, social distancing and sanitizing everything, Mondelez International is challenging people to have a little fun on April Fools’ Day, courtesy of its Sour Patch Kids brand.
“After such a tough year, we know that our fans are ready for some normalcy, including the return of playful traditions such as pranking on April Fools’ Day,” said Mili Laddha, Associate Director of Marketing for Sour Patch Kids at Mondelēz International.
The brand is encouraging consumers 18 and over to share videos of their best, harmless prank on TikTok for the. chance to win cash and candy. Between March 27 and April 1, consumers who follow @therealsourpatchkids on TikTok and include the hashtags#SourPatchPrankFund and #Sweepstakes as a text overlay and in the caption of their prank videos will have the opportunity to be one of 25 people (chosen at. random) to win $1,000.
We know that our fans are avid TikTok users who share pranks, so it made perfect sense for this fun prank-focused initiative,” Laddha said. “As the most followed snack brand on TikTok, we’ve. already established ourselves on this platform and are excited to use our channel to shine a spotlight on some of the best pranks.”
The Sour Patch Kids brand has craftedmuch of its marketing around playful pranks. Commercials feature the brand’s being-shaped mascots pulling harmless pranks on people (such as tying their hair to a bus-stop bench or cutting off one pigtail overnight), in keeping with the line, “First they’re sour. Then they’re sweet.” A holiday-themed promo withAmazon Prime n 2018 involved a 24-minute animated video featuring the brand mascots trashing a ginger-bread house.
The brand has enlisted five TikTok creators known for their prank videos. The creators, @TheCrazyGorilla, @VirziTriplets, @SometimesMamaYells, @SantiAndMikay, and @TattedBoy92, will serve as guides outlining what types of pranks should be submitted. Among the suggestions: be safe (both as a prank and in terms of social distancing), ensure you have permission to post the subjects in the video, don’t promote discriminatory behavior or violence, and don’t include drugs, harmful language, nudity or graphic imagery. (Promotional materials showing a zip-tied toilet paper roll as an example of the type of prank the brand is looking for.)
As the COVID-19 pandemic has taken the air out of many celebratory occasions over the past year, candy brands have been forced to think creatively to keep their sales going. In a Halloween promotion, for instance, the Sour Patch Kids brand, turned the tables on trick-or-treating giving consumers the chance to have candy delivered to their homes by the brand’s mascots.
As the world reopens, Mondelēz has an opportunity to draw audiences to its retail store, which opened last summer in New York’s Soho district offering candy, gear. and a dessert bar. The store could be a great destination for tourists who return to New York to come in and create their own candy mix and take photos with “the Kids” — the brand’s candy mascots in a yellow taxi.
