Timing is everything, whether you are an official team partner or not. Take Conagra Foods Hebrew National Hot Dogs for example. The Kosher Dog, with a few professional sports ties but not many, made a very smart play this week to tie to the Jets, the NFL and poster boy quarterback Mark Sanchez by capitalizing on the shots of Sanchez munching on a hot dog on the sideline during Sunday's romp over the Oakland Raiders. In honor of the on-camera hot dog sneak, Hebrew national announced today a plan of free hot dogs for anyone holding a ticket to any professional football game this season (hello UFL) where a quarterback is caught on camera eating a hot dog. The announcement strikes home for many reasons. One it is a great ambush marketing play for a brand which is more regional than national and usually doesn’t get national exposure, especially even remotely tied to a professional sports brand. Second it is set up so that the chances of a mega-giveaway are slim, but if the viral nature of the offer gets out and there is a quarterback and a cameraman smart enough to catch the sneak during a broadcast, the exposure will fare outweigh the cost. Third, it is perfectly worded to avoid any mention of NFL team, so as not to infringe upon any rights, and fourth, it is a great example of a brand making light of an incident which probably was taken way to seriously anyway. Now will a team take advantag. Could a college or minor league brand up the challeng. Will Hebrew National be prepared for a deluge should the challenge play ou. All to be seen. Regardless of the outcome, the brand beat the competition to the bunch and added in a nice PR spin, as captured in the New York Post and other places Wednesday. Good old fashioned spinning in a time when brands are always looking for the unique, cost efficient brand.
Some other good reads…the Chicago Sun Times had a good piece on the venerable game brand strat-o-matic and their Negro League game set…the Washington Post's Norman Chad had a good column recently on the disconnect between commercial slogans and what they represent…and Media Post had a good list of eight ways to kill a brand…
This give Hebrew national a different exposure than it usually has.
I think it is trying to appeal to tailgaters more, as are other brands.