The US TV campaign for Kraft Foods/SPK aired throughout the cable stations. For ABC Family, which is governed by ABC networks, there were concerns of the portrayal of violence on the ‘Paintball’ spot as we saw the talent shot by the Sour Patch Kid character. A request to add the disclaimer - "Do not attempt" was made by the station ABC. In addition, the use of profanity, even if implied, resulted in having restrictions on several stations like Turner, MTVN. The stations cited that they could not see any partial lip flap of the "sh_____" at the end of the Paintball spot. In addition, careful review was taken as the station views anti-social behaviour as unacceptable for children even if implied.Something to keep in mind, is that for stations geared for children's programming like Cartoon, Nick, Cartoon network, you may have heavy restrictions/rejections on the spot if you add a tag promoting social media like Facebook and Twitter.

The Sour Patch Kids brand was already loved for its split personality of being Sour then Sweet; a notion brought to life by a charming TV campaign that doubled the brand’s business since it launched in 2006. However, the little sour candy had bigger dreams. Therefore, the 2011 brief for Sour Patch Kids was simple yet challenging: Make the Sour Patch Kid into a pop culture icon.

No easy feat given that the brand is outspent 5 to 1 by its competition. Therefore, we decided to go beyond TV and create a dynamic brand world. We turned the candy into a character so hell-bent on being eaten, that it goes completely mad when lost. We call him ‘The Kid’.

To prepare the masses for The Kid’s mischievous debut, we recruited our Facebook fans, drawing them in to compete in a Save-A-Sour-Patch-Kid challenge. We kept the conversation alive by posting irreverent commentary each day, which propelled our fan base from 1.7MM fans into 3.1MM in only 9 months.

Fans clamoured for more mischief, so we created a ‘World Gone Sour’ video game where you control a discarded Sour Patch Kid whose ultimate mission is to make it into the belly of a human. To get there he must battle supremely sour and deranged candy monsters, and free his friends who went crazy while trapped in the human world.

However, like any aspiring pop culture icon, we needed help from some famous friends, so we promoted the video game by shooting a rap music video featuring an original song from Method Man. In addition, by allowing Meth to be Meth, the rap video blew up online and gave The Kid much-needed street cred to hype the launch of our ‘World Gone Sour’ video game, available on Xbox, PlayStation and PCs.

The Sour Patch Kids Facebook page is the hub for all things sour and sweet. We primed fans to visit daily through our ‘Save a Sour Patch Kid’ sweepstakes. We hijacked their News Feeds with wayward but lovable jokes and pop culture commentary. In October, we premiered Method Man’s lyrical tribute to Sour Patch Kids, the ‘World Gone Sour’ rap video, which spurred hip-hop enthusiasts to hype us across social networks. We released behind-the-scene clips of Method Man on-set to sustain momentum. Finally, a hand-drawn animated trailer announced the release of World Gone Sour video game available on Xbox and PlayStation

Our Facebook fan page enjoyed an 82% increase and 18-24 year olds have become our most popular age group (up from 13-17.) The likelihood of our Facebook audience to ‘like’, Comment, or Share our content is 3x that of our largest competitor.

In October, the Method Man 'World Gone Sour' rap video premiered and travelled so far and fast that 25% of our initial launch day views hailed from major rap sites in Russia: Rap.ru ain’t nothing to fuck with! Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter shout outs helped make World Gone Sour (The Lost Kids) YouTube’s ‘Most Favourite’ video in October, garnering nearly 8,000 ‘likes’ and well over a million views. Not to mention, our launch day coincided with the release of the iPhone4S and while Mac fan boys & girls were tweeting furiously, Method Man was able to edge past and become a trending topic that day.

The rap video was created to hype our World Gone Sour video game and gaming media giants like Kotaku took notice, posting glowing reviews for an advergame that (finally) doesn't suck.

Now Sour Patch Kids is the fastest growing US candy brand, with sales up 12% and total share up 7% for 2011. Sweet.