The U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament, widely known across the United States as March Madness, is one of the nation’s most popular sporting events. With viewership during the nearly three-week tournament measuring over 181 million, media buys targeting March Madness viewers are incredibly expensive. Factor in high production costs and official NCAA sponsorships starting in the millions, and distributing branded entertainment to tournament viewers via standard channels becomes prohibitively expensive.

With nearly 20% of shoppers involved in March Madness parties—and the average amount spent topping that of parties thrown during the NFL’s Super Bowl—it’s absolutely critical that a snacks brand like Pringles figure out a way to be relevant during the tournament timeframe in a cost-effective manner. The Pringles Flavor Slam program managed to achieve successful distribution of its branded entertainment to the March Madness demographic without expensive media buys, productions, or NCAA sponsorship.

A program was crafted that let both fans and non-fans in on the March Madness excitement and its celebratory moments. Flavor Slam centered on the creation of a basketball-like trick shot game using a Pringles can, a can backboard, and a ping-pong ball. Celebrity trick shot artists Dude Perfect created a six-minute video featuring the Flavor Slam game and a variety of trick shots. Targeting a 10% sales lift, the video included a call to action driving shoppers to Walmart to get a can backboard and then create and share their own trick shot videos on social channels using #FlavorSlam.

Pringles Flavor Slam is successfully engaging consumers online and in stores.

The program debuted with the release of Dude Perfect’s trick shot video on PringlesFlavorSlam.com and Dude Perfect’s YouTube channel, receiving 2,000,000 views within the first week and 3,761,730 views at submission. As of 31/03/2014, the program has garnered 141,600,000+ impressions, of which 44,680,000+ were via earned media.

In addition, Flavor Slam has far exceeded the 10% sales-lift objective. Between 15/02/2014 and 31/03/2014, Pringles sales were up 22.2% versus a year ago at Walmart, resulting in a return on investment of $11.60 (€8.43) per $1 (€0.73) spent.