Our Award-Winning Work
In 2007 alone, Millsport earned nine awards for its sports marketing programs, including a prestigious Cannes Gold Lion, Promo PRO Award, Globes Award, Stevie Award, Ex Award, and a Bill Veeck Sports Marketing Award from St. Louis University.
Lay's Get Your Smile On
Objective
Lay’s® potato chips was seeking a program that would increase purchase frequency for its single-serve bags (1.5 oz.) in cafeterias, food service locations, quick-service restaurants and vending locations during the fourth quarter of 2006. The overall brand objective was to increase loyalty to Lay’s chips and perpetuate the tagline of “Get Your Smile On”.At the same time, Lay’s wanted to connect the dots between its goals and Frito-Lay’s National Football League sponsorship to leverage the most powerful property in sports. Frito Lay has official salty snack status with the NFL and can extend that designation to any of its brands.
As with most Frito Lay programs, success would be measured by overall sales versus the previous year through the food service, vending and QSR channels. Web site entries and hits on Lays.com would also be important bellwethers.
Target consumers were both males 18-24 who over-index in food service channels and gatekeeper moms. In addition to reaching consumers, Lay’s hoped to engage its field sales representatives and key accounts such as deli store franchisees, cafeteria operators (Sodexho Marriott) and vending operators.
Strategy
Millsport played directly off Lay’s tagline and developed a program entitled Lay’s Get Your Pro Bowl Smile On that would leverage the appeal of trips for two to the NFL Pro Bowl, the league’s all-star game played held in Honolulu each February. The prize is enticing to both hardcore football fans and the gatekeeper mom who would like to take her family to Hawaii.We enhanced the smile connection by building the consumer contest/sweepstakes around images of well-known NFL players including Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Tiki Barber and others. Consumers visiting Lays.com would only be able to view a cropped version of an NFL player’s smile and would need to identify the player through a multiple choice list. If they did correctly identify the player, they were entered into the drawing for a trip for two to the Pro Bowl. Trips were awarded for each week of the NFL season, a total of 17 in all. In addition, one grand prize winner would be selected from all consumers who correctly guessed all 17 smiles with the prize being a VIP trip for four to the Pro Bowl.
Secondary prizes included officially licensed NFL jerseys and Lay’s chip bowls that were instant-wins on Lays.com.
In addition, sales contests were instituted for PepsiCo food service representatives and key accounts such as Sodexho Marriott and U.S. Food Service. If customers at key accounts and vending operators met sales benchmarks during the promotional time frame, they were eligible to win a trip for two to the Pro Bowl. In all, 25 trips were awarded to key accounts/field.
Activation Program Components
Web – Lays.com served as the home for the contest with a Splash page opening that incorporated the consumer’s name on stadium banners and a Jumbotron after their age was verified. All player images appeared on a Jumbotron and a score board of how the consumer has fared each week was provided. To keep consumers interested throughout the promotion and to avoid contestant frustration, they were allowed to guess on players from previous weeks if they signed up midway through the promotion. They were also allowed to try to guess a player’s identity after a weekly contest closed (if they weren’t able to guess in three tries that week) to remain eligible for the grand prize.
Sell Kits – Consumer contest information and the internal contest details were communicated to field/food service channels through sell kits.
Player Imagery – Millsport worked with Players Inc. to acquire the images of the NFL’s best players and was able to utilize the players at no cost to the client.
Promotional Support:
Packaging – Lay’s featured the contest with NFL and Pro Bowl marks on single-serve packaging for Lay’s, Lay’s Kettle and Baked Lay’s throughout the run of the promotion. Both the football imagery and the tag “You Could Win a Trip to Hawaii” were utilized. On the back panel of each bag, one of 11 code words was provided such as “Fun”, “Crispy”, “Smiles”, etc. Codes could be redeemed online for up to three clues about the identity of each NFL player. The codes were used as a purchase driver.
POS Displays – Lay’s utilized counter cards to communicate the contest to consumers in cafeterias and QSR locations and drive them to Lays.com. Vendor clings and danglers were also placed on vending machines.
Property Support:
Use of NFL logos and use of player imagery through Players Inc. (NFL Players Association). VIP access provided through NFL relationship for grand prize winner.
