Sour Patch Kids offering indie bands free room and board in exchange for their everlasting souls

by Mark Teo

November 3, 2014

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As anyone in a working band knows, it’s tough to make money. The traditional ways bands make money—selling records, merch, touring—are rapidly failing, and accordingly, many bands realize that working with deep-pocketed, authenticity-seeking brands are the only way to make money. Things are hard for touring bands, and unless you can afford hotels, you’re stuck sleeping in vans or on couches while on tour. That, apparently, is why Sour Patch Kids bought a house. In Brooklyn.

You heard that correctly: In a marketing scheme to end all marketing schemes, the candy brand has bought a prime piece of real estate in New York. And instead of paying bands, they’re offering them room and board when they visit New York.

The apartment, which is owned by NUE, an advertising agency operating on behalf of Sour Patch Kids, is called the Brooklyn Patch, and it looks pretty swank—note the, ahem, subtle branding, featuring a neon-lit wall piece shaped like the pucker-mouthed confection. And they’re keeping shit underground, says the brand, like a word-of-mouth warehouse show featuring very authentic bands creating snackable, shareable content created for, and most importantly by, thought leaders in youth culture (or something like that). “The word’s not really out about this place yet,” Jesse Kirshbaum, NUE’s founder, told Ad Age.

It’s their way of saying that, like the new Meatbodies album, this shit is about as cool and subversive as a Mikal Cronin side-project. But as bands surely know, nothing in life is free—and in exchange for staying at Casa del Sour Patch, they have to create organic “content.” That doesn’t mean they’ll have to score a Sour Patch Kids commercial, but bands will likely be encouraged to share tweets with on-brand hashtags, while bands staying there longer will be subjected to branded videos, because MORE VIDEO CONTENT.

The first band that’ll be staying there? Deer Tick, a very cool, emerging indie act. “We envision this being a very grassroots thing,” Mr. Kirshbaum said.

The thirst, friends, is real. That said: A few branded tweets—and, perhaps, a little irretrievable part of your soul—probably costs less than a hotel in Manhattan.

Tags: , News, WTF, Deer Tick, Sour Patch Kids, Thirst

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