In sports sponsorships, every brand buys its way in, sticks its logo where it doesn’t belong, and gets lost. Traditional sponsors had littered every sporting surface imaginable with meaningless messaging. To break through, we did the only sensible thing: We created a mascot to die for sponsorships’ sins. The game and sport itself became an afterthought as our mascot’s sacrifice became the story. We changed the playbook for sports sponsorships, by turning our brand into a meme, and then killing it. The legend of this moment grew after the game, leading to 15x more media mentions than other brand-sponsored bowls.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

College (American) Football is an American institution. In contrast to the NFL (National Football League), college football is far more accessible to fans, eliciting deep fan connection and is widely celebrated for its tradition, pageantry and drama.

In the postseason, College bowl games are played by university teams to conclude the season. These games often feature teams from different conferences or regions and are typically held in December and January. Many bowl games have historical significance and often carry sponsor names, offering teams a chance for extra practice, competition, and recognition at the end of the season.

In recent years, it’s been harder than ever for sponsors to break through during the college football bowl season because:

∙There are more bowl games than ever, with 43 total in the 2023 season

∙Sponsors change frequently, diminishing name recognition, with 10 new sponsors last season alone

∙Sponsors often lack any connection to the games they support, diminishing historical significance and name recognition of the games

∙The best players often opt out, protecting themselves ahead of entering the National Football League (NFL)

MASCOTS

In the United States, mascots are a major part of sports culture, used in both professional and college sports to boost team spirit, entertain fans, and market the team. American mascots enhance the fan experience during games by acting as cheerleaders and sometimes even picking “fights” with the opposing team’s mascot.

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 break into a new eating occasion for a brand historically tied to breakfast, Pop-Tarts created the world’s first edible mascot, a human-sized Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts pastry, and fed it to the winning team on the field of the Pop-Tarts Bowl, as a snack. While most brands turn their food into a mascot, for the first time ever, we turned a mascot into food—changing the playbook for sports sponsorships in the process.

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.

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

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