Five CPG Brands Getting in the Game Without Buying the Ad | Left Hand Agency CPG High Five
Sports made up 96 of the 100 most-watched TV broadcasts in the US last year. Football alone was 92 of them. Nothing else comes close! Not the Oscars, not the MTV Music Video Awards, not the finale of your favorite talent show.
Why? Because sports is one of the last things we still watch live, and together. Nobody is saving the Packers game to watch on Thursday. And for a lot of us (hi, it's me - go touchdown a home run!), the game is kind of the excuse. I like sports. I like the people I watch sports with more. The wings, the group text, the neighbor who yells at the TV like the refs can hear him (AKA my friend Robby). That's the real product. Sports is a cultural touchstone that reaches us in heightened emotional states.
When it comes to advertising around sports, the spot during the game is only one way in. The smartest brands pair it with a whole menu of other plays that keep them in front of fans before, during and after kickoff. Team and league sponsorships. Stadium signage and naming rights. Branded bars and concessions. Sampling at the gate. Athlete deals, and now athlete ownership. College NIL deals. Creators. Retail displays with team logos slapped on them. Sweepstakes that dangle a Super Bowl trip. I could go on but you get the idea!
This fall, five brands are playing five different positions. Some of it will work. Some of it will cost a lot and do a little. And most of the time, we won’t know in advance!
1. Dos Hombres
The bar you can walk up to.
They’re “Breaking Bar” (sorry I had to!). Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's mezcal brand just opened its first branded bar on the sixth floor of SoFi Stadium. It debuted at the Rams home opener with the two of them behind the bar pouring drinks, and it stays open for every event, football, concerts, all of it. This is the most hands-on version of sports marketing there is. You're not looking at a logo, you're holding the product at the exact moment you're in the mood for a drink. However, a stadium bar only reaches people physically in the building, paying stadium prices, and SoFi already has other tequila bars in its clubs. (Yes… I know Mezcal isn’t the same as tequila but it’s a sassy cousin ok?). The real reach here is the photo of two famous guys slinging cocktails. The bar is the reason for the press release. The press release is what is earning them reach.
Going local on purpose.
Oreo's parent company just signed its first ever NFL team deal with the Kansas City Chiefs, plus five big college programs and NIL deals with athletes like Texas receiver Ryan Wingo. A $38 billion company choosing to go regional sounds backwards. It isn't. Fans don't love "football." They love their team, and they can't stand yours. Just ask our Marketing Director Maia who is a Bronco’s fan… and has a few choice words about the Chiefs. Mondelez's sponsorship lead said flat out that they wouldn't have signed unless the deals drove displays in stores, and starting in October shoppers in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska will see Chiefs-branded snack displays. The logo on the jumbotron doesn't sell Ritz right away although it works on mental availability. The end cap two days before kickoff does.
3. Ring Pop
Wear your colors.
Bazooka Candy Brands handed out 70,000 blue and green Ring Pops at the Seahawks home opener, brought in football creator Deestroying (14 million plus followers, former college kicker), ran a national spot on Peacock during the game, and set up in-store displays across Washington. More teams are coming. I love this one because it gives the product a job. A Ring Pop in team colors isn't candy, it's face paint you can eat. To me it’s an interesting play because Ring Pops are mainly kid candy and NFL games bring out more adults vs. families thanks to the stupid - oops I mean pricey - ticket prices. Handing out 70,000 free Ring Pops is a sampling play, and sampling only pays off if people can find the thing on a shelf later.
Marketing to the person doing the dishes.
P&G's dish brands are the "Official Dish Cleanup Partners of the NFL," which totally rolls off the tongue right? The smart move isn't the title. They signed Ann Michael Maye, baking creator and wife of Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, whose holiday baking videos blew up on TikTok last year. She's not talking to the guy in the jersey. She's talking to whoever is hosting the party. P&G says 74 percent of Americans like watching football at home, and nearly half say dirty dishes are the part of hosting they dread most. I do wonder if anyone will actually remember the "official dish cleanup partner” at the shelf but the mental availability is more important than exact recall. A caveat on purchase-based sweepstakes, they mostly reward people who were already buying Dawn or just want to enter a contest. They pull sales forward but don't always find new households.
Make the athlete an owner.
Athletic just made Dak Prescott and Drake Maye "athlete-owners," with equity stakes, multi-year deals, and ads where fans seem to be raving about the quarterback but are actually talking about the beer. Athletic also became the NA beer partner of MetLife Stadium, the Jets and the Giants in August, and it sponsors Arsenal. Equity is a more interesting approach vs. straight endorsement. The athlete has a reason to care, and the brand gets a spokesperson who shows up for more than one shoot. These kinds of deals are becoming more prevalent.
Honorable mentions. PepsiCo's "Tailgating Deserves Pepsi," with Jerome Bettis and Justin Jefferson, free product, tailgate experiences and in-store displays at retailers like Jewel-Osco. And Sprite coming back as the NBA's global soft drink partner on a new multiyear deal.
When it doesn't work for CPG Brands, and why.
T. Bettina Cornwell at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!) has studied sponsorship for years, and her piece in HBR this summer makes an uncomfortable point. Brands still grade these deals on logo exposure and quick recall, and that's measuring the wrong thing. Fans build messy, overlapping memories across brands, events and competitors, and they regularly give credit for a sponsorship to a brand that didn’t paid for it. You can spend millions on a stadium and have fans thank your competitor. The deals that work have two things in common. They connect to a real moment (the tailgate, the dishes, the drink in your hand) and they connect to the shelf.
Sports is a great place to spend money. It's also a great place to waste it. Show up where people actually gather, and make sure your product is waiting at the store on the way home.
We are Left Hand Agency, a CPG media buying agency helping brands grow with short and long-term strategies. Our memory-driven strategies deliver results your marketing and finance teams will champion.
