Candy maker Just Born, Inc., Bethlehem, PA, has historically carved out comfortable market share with low-key promotional campaigns. Its Mike & Ike brand is among the top five sellers in the soft, chewy segment, while its Hot Tamales is the No. 1 brand in cinnamon candies. 

But Just Born decided last spring it could use a little more flavor in its advertising, especially if it wanted to muscle in on the big boys of the candy category. The company, along with New York City-based agency Kobin Enterprises, recruited Atlantic Records, New York City, to give it some star power, and "Music Madness" was, well, just born. 

"The highlight of the campaign for us was teaming with such a well-known partner as Atlantic Records," says Just Born group product manager Matt Pye. "This is something we've started doing for the first time over the past year. We're not a big name with the resources of an M&Ms or Skittles, so working with Atlantic helped us close the gap."

 The campaign, which was designed to boost sales and increase product profile and excitement among the company's target audience of 12- to 17-year-olds, consisted of an on-pack/in-pack sweepstakes that ran via 15 million boxes of Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales. The sweeps offered up more than three million prizes, including Music Cash gift certificates in $2, $5, and $10 denominations and 15,000 copies of Atlantic Records' Absolute Hits, a compilation CD featuring such top artists as Jewel, Matchbox 20, and Hootie & the Blowfish.

 Packaging also contained a mail-in entry form for the grand-prize package, an all-expense paid trip to appear in a future video by an Atlantic artist. 

"A real key to the success of this campaign was the accessibility of prizes," says managing partner Sharon Tracy of Kobin Enterprises. "We were offering a one-in-five chance to win, whereas most promotions offer odds of one in seven million."

By teaming with Atlantic, Just Born was able to use the artists' images in TV spots (30-second spots ran 300 times exclusively on MTV from May 10th through June 5th) and trade collateral - without having to pay royalty or licensing fees to the performers.

"Music is big with our target audience, and we were able to leverage the names of Atlantic artists on our own packages," says Pye. "If you go to the artist directly, you're going to pay a lot more." Atlantic Records also ran a "Music Madness" banner on its home page (www.atlantic-records.com), as well as a dedicated sweepstakes entry page. 

The results were tasty. The promotion boosted brand sales by 17.7 percent versus the same period in 1998. Just Born's prior on-pack efforts had never increased sales more than five percent. And the sales momentum continued for Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales even after the promotion ended. 

"The results were outstanding. We've never done anything to this degree," says Pye. "We've done on-pack before, but not backed by TV. We moved sales numbers double-digit in a category that's only growing in the single digits." 

The partnership proved equally beneficial for Atlantic Records, which sold more than 2,000 units of The Absolute Hits CD each week the promotion ran - in a period when the company was not running any of its own dedicated advertising. 

With its first foray into tie-ins having been so successful, Just Born signed on as a NASCAR sponsor in 2000 and is actively looking for other promotional partners.