Sour Patch Kids wreck gingerbread house in 24-minute Amazon Prime video

Dive Brief:

Candy brand Sour Patch Kids, which is owned by Mondelez, teamed up with Amazon Prime Video on "Wreck The Halls," a 24-minute stop-motion video showing Sour Patch Kids destroying a gingerbread house, per details shared with Marketing Dive. The video is available on Amazon Prime Video as well as on YouTube.
The video, shot all in one take, features holiday music and the sounds of crackling gingerbread and jackhammering. Sour Patch Kids drive real mini excavators and tear down a real gingerbread house created by food stylist Marisol Morely, while doing a conga line, taking selfies and chest bumping.
The brand released a 90-second trailer showing highlights, as well as 15- and six-second iterations for social media. "Wreck The Halls" was created with Barton F. Graf and My Active Driveway.

Dive Insight:

Sour Patch Kids is attempting to create a rivalry with classic holiday treat gingerbread by showcasing animated candies destroying a classic gingerbread house. The humorous creative and novelty factor could help the brand build awareness with consumers and potentially drive sales around the holidays, a popular time for candy sales, and in advance of the launch of Sour Patch Kids Cereal later this month.

Branded videos have been popular on YouTube, but as Amazon's expands its marketing services business and continues to build out Amazon Prime video, it could become an attractive alternative for some marketers. Recent research shows that more brands are shifting their digital spend to Amazon, with marketers attracted to Amazon for its trove of consumer data and the possibility of reaching consumers who are poised to make a purchase, as about half of all shopping sessions start on Amazon.

For the 2018 holiday season, brands planning to advertise on Amazon are projected to devote 21% of their overall budgets to the channel, with 82% creating Christmas-specific campaigns, per new ClickZ and Kenshoo research. Another Mondelez brand, Oreo, recently started selling a miniature turntable on Amazon. The holiday gift item swaps out the usual vinyl records to instead spin the Mondelez brand's cookies.

"Wreck The Halls" is a twist on the popular Yule Log online video experiences that feature hours of a single shot of a crackling fire. Viewers often enjoy the videos for an autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) experience, in which certain noises provide a calming and relaxing effect. The holiday music, snapping gingerbread and jackhammering sounds in the Sour Patch Kids video could have the same appeal. This is a trend more brands are incorporating into their creative. Procter & Gamble brand Old Spice unveiled an hour-long YouTube video last year showing a static shot of a Yule Log in a fireplace that continuously explodes.