FaZe Clan Co-Owner’s 1UP Candy Dares Consumers with ‘Sour Gummy Challenge’

From spoonfuls of cinnamon to hot sauce gauntlets, food challenges have been an entrenched part of YouTube culture for almost as long as the platform has existed. Now, content creator Brian “FaZe Rug” Awadis believes he can build a serious candy business on a big dare.

Launching online today, 1UP Candy is a startup co-founded by Awadis, co-owner of esports organization FaZe Clan and a YouTuber with over 23.2 million subscribers. The company, which intends to focus on non-chocolate candies, is debuting with a single product: the Sour Gummy Challenge. Each challenge kit contains six extremely sour gummies and consumers are tasked with sucking on three of them on camera for 30 seconds while keeping a straight face. The boxes also come with a neutralizer powder mix for immediate relief.

After completing the challenge, Awadis’ fans are encouraged to post their videos to TikTok and Instagram with the hashtag #1UPsourchallenge. For the Sour Gummy Challenge launch, 1UP Candy has partnered with mobile payment services company Cash App. From May 17 to 20, the products will only be available for pre-sale to Cash App Card holders, who will also receive a 20% discount. The app is also sponsoring a giveaway, offering consumers a chance to win up to $500.

Awadis is the latest YouTuber to hop into CPG, joining the likes of Logan Paul and KSI (PRIME), Emma Chamberlain (Chamberlain Coffee) and MrBeast (Feastables); in April the latter launched its own sour gummy line in collaboration with Karl Jacobs. As more brands have sought to partner with celebrities, and more entertainers look to use their platforms to launch brands, firms such as ForceBrands have created new divisions dedicated to connecting creators with CPG professionals.

Speaking to NOSH, Awadis pointed to the strong performance of other creators’ products as inspiration to create a brand of his own.

“I’ve seen other Youtubers’ success, but I don’t want to, obviously, go down their specific route,” he said. “For example, MrBeast’s chocolate, that’s a huge success, and I thought that was really cool. But I haven’t seen someone start a candy brand, and with all the candy videos I’ve made, it just made so much sense for me to actually try to step into this world.”

On his YouTube channel, Awadis has regularly made videos about exotic food experiences and has attempted several popular challenges himself: Last year, for example, he took on tortilla chip brand Paqui’s ultra-spicy One Chip Challenge – a stunt that itself began as a marketing campaign in 2016 but has now evolved into an annual product launch with new versions each year.

Awadis said that he does intend for 1UP Candy to eventually make candies that can be enjoyed in the traditional way, but feels that launching with a challenge is both on brand for his “adventure” focused videos and will help to immediately gain awareness and involve consumers in the brand.

“The way we want to start it off is not just like a regular boring candy,” Awadis said. “We want to make it experience-based. We want people to go through something and share it with their friends, challenge their friends and their family, post it online and just get a little buzz going.”

The brand is also set to benefit from Awadis’ online influencer platform. On his YouTube channel, he noted that videos where he takes on a specific trending challenge tend to be among his most watched.

Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr Beast, used a similar stunt-based, digital strategy to launch his Feastables confection brand last year. The YouTuber gave away millions of dollars in prizes to shoppers who purchased his chocolate bars, with ten grand prize winners filmed for a YouTube video while competing to win a MrBeast chocolate factory.

But for at least the early days of the business, 1UP CEO Matt Weiss said the company will emphasize a “drop-based” innovation model built around limited edition releases sold direct-to-consumer, with a transition to retail expected further down the road. While Weiss and Awadis wouldn’t say what else they have in mind for future drops, the goal for 1UP is to “push the envelope,” with planned innovation separated into two pipelines: one built around flavor, and another focused on experiential products like the Sour Gummy Challenge.

“We’re both of the philosophy that good brands are born from good products, not the other way around,” Weiss said. “And so we want to start off by just nailing the products.”

CPG brands have in recent years increasingly embraced unique, attention-grabbing innovation to drive discussion on social media. Weiss cited The Coca-Cola Company’s Creations line of LTO colas – which includes mystery flavors like the dream-flavored “Dreamworld” and space-flavored “Starlight” – as one source of inspiration. On the experience side, he pointed to candy brands like Pop Rocks and Warheads (perhaps the most comparable product to the Sour Gummy Challenge) as the type of texture-based innovations 1UP will aim to create.

According to Weiss, 1UP will also look to collaborate with other food and beverage companies for co-branded products, seeking to “borrow” flavors for unique limited edition launches, much like energy drink brands C4 and the FaZe Clan-aligned Ghost have created candy flavored beverages in partnership with Skittles and Sour Patch Kids.