After Taking Over Myspace, Trolli Tries Out Craigslist

One year ago, Trolli picked an unusual platform to promote a line of martian-themed gummies: Myspace. Without spending a dime on paid media, the brand built more than 200 Myspace profile pages for its candied characters and gave them names such as Space Emperor Janice and Lloyd Crumb Sr. It's important to note that around this time Myspace was attracting 1.6 million unique U.S. visitors per month, according to data analytics firm Comscore. Snapchat, Pinterest and Facebook, as you can guess, were bringing in many millions more. This week, Trolli returned with another unconventional campaign. The Ferrara Candy Company's gummy brand went even more lo-fi with its media strategy by writing posts on Craigslist and pinning flyers to bulletin boards around university campuses. The marketing push, meant to raise awareness of Trolli's new Sour Bursting Crawlers (gummy worms filled with fruit-flavored liquid), asks consumers to "Please Eat Us!" and visit PleaseEat.us, where they can enter a drawing for a chance to win $50,000. Dave Foldes, marketing director of candy brands Trolli, Laffy Taffy and Now and Later at Ferrara, explained the aim was to build some buzz and "get people talking about it." Foldes noted the brand is running some paid social media posts to help fuel the online chatter. https://www.tiktok.com/@yolkfather/video/7098797737952611630?_t=8SOa6ByI8qY&_r=1 To get the word out, Trolli created posts on Craigslist in a handful of markets, including Boston, Chicago, Houston and San Francisco. The messages appeared under Craigslist’s For Sale section in the Wanted category. Trolli planned to expand its campaign into more cities, but quickly ran into problems. Soon after the Craigslist posts went live, users flagged them for removal. "It turns out Craigslist [doesn't] like ads that appear to be posted by humans looking to eat other humans," said Foldes. "It's something we've discovered." A sample Craigslist post, which users flagged for removal. Trolli also put up nearly 100 paper flyers in libraries, job boards and coffee shops around about a dozen university campuses across the country, including Stanford, Dartmouth, New York University and the University of Colorado, Boulder. Those, as far as anyone knows, are still up. An example of Trolli's physical flyer. Similar to last year's Myspace stunt, the campaign's conceit is that Trolli's Sour Bursting Crawlers are, somehow, in charge of this project. They even "wrote" the official press release! And, well, they're neither terrifically smart nor terribly in touch with today's popular mediums for exchanging information. Their greatest desire, after all, is to be eaten. Trolli worked with public relations agency Golin on both campaigns. Foldes described Trolli's Myspace campaign as a "great success," noting the brand has seen a lift in awareness and sales since then. According to Foldes, Trolli's year-to-date revenue is up around 20% compared to the same stretch last year.