Pop-Tarts is a breakfast icon. But to grow the brand, we needed to break into a new occasion—moving from breakfast to snack. Its growth lies in new penetration with teen and young adults eating Pop-Tarts as a snack.

We were tasked with creating a campaign to get Gen-Zers to talk about the brand and show everyone that Pop-Tarts is an entertaining snack for every occasion, leveraging the brand’s new college football bowl sponsorship.

Unfortunately, 2023 was not the ideal year to sponsor a bowl game. With more brands than ever becoming sponsors and the best players often opting out of the games, what used to be fun—brands sponsoring bowls—had become tired.

We had to overcome the fact that the games didn’t seem to matter to young fans. Our sponsorship had to become more interesting than the action on the field.

To rise above traditional sports sponsorships, Pop-Tarts debuted the world’s first edible mascot at its inaugural Pop-Tarts Bowl, a college football postseason game. Announced ahead of the game, Pop-Tarts won college football bowl season before any teams had even taken the field. At the game, the brand sacrificed its mascot to the winning team, with the victors enjoying the edible mascot as a postgame snack. The spectacle captured unprecedented attention, with competing sponsors trying to jump into the conversation and media, fans, and broadcasters celebrating a new era of brand sponsorship.

Armed with the insight that you don't need to love football to love the game, we focused on college football rituals that would light up audiences and break into broader popular culture. (Moments like the winning team’s over-the-top post-game celebrations and the antics of mascots, made it clear it’s the party, not the plays that keep fans hooked on college football.)

Our strategy was designed to appeal to fans of entertainment and pop culture, not just college football fans.

We started by teasing the edible mascot online six weeks early to entice speculation. On game day, the mascot sacrifice was carefully visualized—from the mascot descending to its toasty demise to the winning team consuming the mascot—to invite fans and media to join the fun and share their own memes of the mayhem, creating even more conversation.

Our edible mascot was publicly announced to kick off bowl season at the end of November. For a full month, fans and media were captivated, anticipating what would happen at the game and discussing it endlessly—conversations we happily stoked (reaching our impressions goal weeks before game day). This anticipation continued as our mascot cheered on both teams during the game, becoming the storyline on broadcast tv and social media. The legend only grew after the mascot finally sacrificed itself to the winning team through a giant, on-field toaster. Fans at the game and at home watched the winning team devour the edible mascot. In the days following the game, the story only continued to grow with countless memes, follow-ups and speculation on what the Edible Mascot would do next.

MEDIA

∙4B+ impressions

∙Secured brand interviews and multiple headline features in major publications (New York

Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Bloomberg, People, and all major broadcast networks)

∙15x more media mentions than any other brand-sponsored bowl

ENGAGEMENT

∙14% increase in positive sentiment vs. the previous month

∙7x higher brand search vs. previous week, most searched since 2008

∙8x the social conversation compared to any other December bowl game

BUSINESS IMPACT

∙2.5x higher purchase intent on social vs. any other December bowl game

∙Week after game sales grew 3%, or nearly $500k

∙Pop-Tarts achieved its highest category share of 2023 during the final week of the year,

coinciding with the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Additionally, Pop-Tarts has consistently outperformed in

category share throughout Q1 2024, averaging a 6% weekly growth

∙In the 8 weeks following the Pop-Tarts Bowl, we sold 21M+ more base toaster pastries than the

8 weeks prior to the bowl