Caffeinated protein bar maker Unhinged has launched its first brand campaign with an open casting call where everyone who auditions gets cast
Created by independent agency The Circle, "The Unhinged Casting Call" invites everyday people to show what makes their days chaotic.
Unhinged timed the campaign to its official brand launch on October 1.
The bar already sells on Amazon, TikTok Shop, and the brand's website.
Unhinged picked its brand name for a customer who is doing several things at once and does not want to choose between them.
"We're all spinning a lot of plates, unhinged in our own ways," Unhinged Co-Founder Byron Sorrells said in a statement.
"You're a lot of things at once and you don't have to pick one."
Casting the customer base gives Unhinged a supply of faces it does not have to pay a celebrity for.
The approach also fits a challenger brand strategy, where recognition comes from the people buying the product.
Every Audition Becomes Part of the Campaign
In New York, The Circle asked participants to demonstrate unusual skills and share the decisions, ambitions, and routines that fill their days.
Examples included doing a backflip, quitting a job on impulse, or finishing a HYROX competition before the end of a workday.
The callbacks became increasingly unpredictable as the creative team encouraged participants to improvise and take their performances further.
Three cameras captured their reactions, keeping the performances spontaneous and the production deliberately unpolished.
"The Unhinged Casting Call was stripped all the way back, avoiding layers that felt contrived," The Circle Co-Founder and Creative Director Hunter Hampton shared.
The resulting launch film was directed by Hampton and fellow co-founder Jeph Burton alongside filmmaker Anthony Tripoli.
It opens "Portraits of the Unhinged," a rolling series of individual videos and stills that runs through the year.
The campaign culminates with a film that brings the full cast together.
Additional content will follow through November, extending the campaign across several releases.
Chevrolet also featured real customers and community figures in its recent Heartbeat of America campaign.
For Unhinged, the audition itself becomes the entertainment, giving the new brand a continuing source of personalities and stories.
One Slash Connects the Brand and Product
The campaign's visual identity centers on a familiar punctuation mark.
Borrowed from the product packaging, the slash connects the different parts of a person's identity.
Someone might be a finance worker / skateboarder / aspiring chef / parent, with the same mark separating the competing demands of their day.
This device also reflects the product's dual purpose.
Unhinged combines 11g of protein and 75mg of natural caffeine in its Chocolate Coffee bar, developed under Chief Product Officer Chef Matt Paine.
The slash runs through the packaging and the campaign portraits, giving different stories one consistent visual identity.
The work also marks the creative debut of Burton and Hampton's independent agency, following their time as executive creative directors at Johannes Leonardo.
"The worst thing you could do for a brand literally called 'Unhinged' is go the traditional route," Burton added.
Their approach draws on what The Circle calls "cultural gravity," with audience participation providing the reason to follow the campaign.
Three lessons stand out for marketers introducing challenger brands:
- Make participation part of the idea. The casting process gives people a direct role in creating the campaign.
- Connect identity with product benefits. The slash links multiple personal roles with the bar's protein-and-caffeine proposition.
- Plan for content after launch. Individual portraits keep the campaign active as more participants are introduced.
The cast list doubles as a content calendar, which keeps the campaign running without new production concepts.
This kind of content strategy costs less than booking talent for each release.
Our Take: Can Open Casting Scale?
Casting everyone who auditions turns a creative promise into a standing production cost.
We think that Unhinged can sustain this, though only with image rights and editing capacity settled before the cast grows.
Each new participant adds editing time, approval requirements, and decisions about how their image can be used in future advertising executions.
The brand should also compare production costs, engagement, and purchases attributed to individual portraits through TikTok Shop and its website.
These results would show which stories justify further investment.
The commercial opportunity is building a sustainable ambassador program with manageable costs and measurable results.
Looking to run a campaign with real audience participation? Explore the top creative agencies in our directory.
