Kind campaign: Don’t eat our snacks (for a few days at least)

On a rare outing from my Brooklyn home to the island yesterday, I breezed by a curiously long line of people standing on 8th Street in the West Village and attempted to duck into a bodega. Instead, I walked right into a spacious, brightly lit “activation” from the granola and snack bar maker Kind. In a seemingly illogical move, the company launched a campaign encouraging people to buy fresh foods and not … its products, reports AdWeek. Weird corporate virtue signaling, but OK. And short-lived, too! The first two days of March, the brand won’t sell any packaged snack bars online, instead offering a limited-edition box of fruit, nuts, and seeds. The once-bodega I walked into yesterday was, it turns out, another element of the campaign: a “hidden pop-up farmers market” running through today. After finding an actual bodega, I wandered back toward the activation and joined the line I’d unknowingly cut hours earlier. Debating whether the wait was worth it, I asked someone walking out about the contents of his freshly acquired Kind-branded recyclable bag. “Uh, just some food,” he said, revealing a small head of broccoli, one yellow pepper, and some nuts. “Just wait in line,” the woman in front of me advised, laughing. “It’s a beautiful day!” I left, opting to enjoy the 60-degree weather with an afternoon Aperol Spritz, instead. —Sofia Sokolove