New Year’s Eve, like millions of others, we were watching The Orange Bowl between Michigan and Georgia (I have mild rooting interests on both sides, as my daughter is a grad student at UGA and have numerous friends and colleagues who favor the Maize and Blue and had just helped out with the Joe Moore Award, won by the Michigan O Line) when Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit took a few minutes to honor the late Larry Wahl, who we lost this past year.
One of the best people I have ever been around, Larry hired me as Assistant Director of Marketing and Public Relations at SportsChannel in 1988, and we remained friends and colleagues forever, as his journey (he was Yankees PR director before SportsChannel) took him to the University of Miami, out of sports for a while and then to the Orange Bowl for quite a few years, spearheading many of their initiatives in his subtly, understated but very effective way.
I was thinking of Larry early in the game last night before the tribute, because he was always talking about all the pieces that went into making a Bowl game a year-round part of the community…charitable events, fundraisers, coach talks, brand activations, that are essential but get lost in the clutter and the glitz of when the actual game took place.
I remember when we talked last, during Super Bowl week in Miami, and he was always so proud of all the things the Orange Bowl did to be more than just a game…how even on the best years you had to find a way to make a difference and keep reminding people of the relevance the event has. I have spoken to another friend on the Bowl front lines, Scott Leightman and all he does with the Fiesta Bowl Foundation (with two Bowl games in a “normal year not just one) about similar challenges and opportunities over the years, and I always think that if those organizations, on the brightest of stages, have challenges, how tough is it for the second tier bowls to remain relevant and vibrant.
And then I saw and read the story of the Duke’s Mayo Bowl this year, and the brilliance and the grit of Miller Yoho, the director of communications and marketing for the Charlotte Sports Foundation, which organizes the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, to find a way to cut through the clutter with a fun and memorable viral moment.
Most of the details were pulled together by Nicole Auerbach in The Athletic, but the bear repeating…
Shane Beamer braced himself for the mayonnaise bath he both desperately wanted and totally dreaded. South Carolina had beaten North Carolina, 38-21, in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, and he had promised he’d let the bowl sponsors dump four-and-a-half gallons of slightly watered-down mayo on his head if his Gamecocks had won.
So they did.
“As the person who monitors social media, it was very controversial — which we were fine with,” said Miller Yoho, the director of communications and marketing for the Charlotte Sports Foundation, which organizes the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. “But we made the decision that we could never tease it like that again.”
Afterward, Yoho got to thinking about taking the event to the next level. He worked with the sponsor and marketing partners, and they eventually settled on the idea of a $10,000 charitable donation to incentivize participation in an actual mayo bath.
Before the game, Beamer said he’s “not a big mayonnaise guy” but that he’d “gladly take one for the team on that one if it means we won a football game. But woof.” North Carolina head coach Mack Brown said he’d “let someone hit me with a frying pan” if it meant he won a game. “Mayonnaise is easy,” he added.
Yoho’s team set up a designated spot for the mayo dump about 30 yards into the stadium’s tunnel, with a chair for the coach and a Duke’s Mayo backdrop to highlight the charitable element. The bath took place after the postgame trophy ceremony, and though it was less spontaneous that way, it was still highly entertaining. And an easier cleanup, as it took place on concrete. “The coach sitting in a chair was, we figured, the best way,” Yoho said. “They just have to take it.”
In a world of box checking, where a communications person could just accept an outcome or roll with the same old, the game, and its postgame would have come and gone. Sponsor got their coverage, teams had a good time, local organizing committee explains the value and off it goes.
But really, what fun is that?
Miller Yoho took a chance, listened, and gave some great thought into how an event could cut through and be memorable, and visual, to millions of others who may not have watched or seen the game, and that foresight, and proactivity, is what makes communications and marketing jobs fun. Now could it have all gone for naught? Maybe. But when it works, its not just satisfying professionally, its gratifying personally, because the juice, or the mayo, was worth the squeeze.
It is that type of fun and unique promotion which I know Larry Wahl would have loved, and it was a great example of someone building a story…a visual one, which drove results not planned at first, well beyond the scope of what could be done.
Kudos Miller Yoho and team for making some great chicken salad with a whole lot of mayo…Duke’s Mayo.
