Starburst Goes After College Kids with New Candy

A GummiBurst Garage Band van is cruising college campuses.

Starburst is looking to improve the profile of its new GummiBursts brand among college students with a mobile cross-country campus tour.

The ‘Starburst Brand GummiBursts Garage Band’ tour hits the road this week in Boston, with planned stops at campus locations in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Antonio, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego before wrapping up in Raleigh and Charlotte, NC, in December.

At each stop, students will be invited to perform on the stage of the GummiBurst van with one of four virtual instruments, drums, guitar or bass, through the Microsoft Xbox console. Four large plasma screens will capture the action and participants will receive faux concert GummiBurst T-shirts.

Everyone attending the mock concerts will have opportunity to sample the GummiBurst candy Starburst introduced earlier this year: plans include distribution of nearly 600,000 samples.

“We know our target audience is interested in music and gaming, so we’re really trying to tap into those interests to generate a buzz about the new product,” said Kim DeMartino, managing director of Catapult Marketing, which conceived the tour and is executing it.

Catapult aims to boost interest on each campus with a poster campaign in advance of each stop to draw the 18-to-24-year-old consumers it’s trying to reach. Catapult is also counting on word-of-mouth to draw a crowd when each event commences.