• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, September 16, 2024

College football fans may be crazy for tailgate parties, but Frank’s RedHot knows they need some schooling. The world’s leading hot sauce is introducing “the Dean of Tailgating,” using a newly created character to launch Dip’n and Squeeze sauces.

While Frank’s RedHot is the No. 1 hot sauce, the brand is such a built-in part of the grilling lineup that it can be hard to notice.

“We wanted to capture people's attention,” says Valda Coryat, McCormick & Co.’s North America vice president of marketing, condiments and sauces. The brand, which had previously featured NFL player Jason Kelce in ads, is now focusing on tailgaters as “the real heroes of the game.”

She tells Marketing Daily that the campaign targets the kind of consumer that doesn’t just love the tailgating vibe, “but wants to level up that experience. For them, there’s never enough fun.”

By introducing the Dean of Tailgating as a central character, he can “thread through the whole campaign, which is very much social-first. He is both an everyday guy and also a flavor authority.”

With his red blazer, khaki shorts and flip-flops, the dean looks like someone who knows what he is talking about when it comes to flavor, Coryat says. “And he is still somebody you’d want to have a drink with.”

The goal is to help the brand expand not only market share but also “share of mind and share of mouth,” she says. It also promotes awareness and purchase of the new line, “celebrating that we are for dipping, dunking and drizzling, as well as the new squeezable bottle format.”

Between the creative input of agency Colle McVoy and the comedic chops of Strike Anywhere, its production company, she hopes the result is also a campaign that consumers find memorable.

“We kept asking ourselves, 'Will everyone walk away from this ad feeling that – just like Frank’s – they’re actually Game Day heroes, too?’ We want them to know how much they can bring to a tailgate.”

In its most recent quarterly results, McCormick, based in Maryland, reported a 1% decline in sales. But hot sauce sales in the Americas bucked that downward trend, rising in both consumption and market share. “As we realize the benefit of our increased innovation, including Frank's new Dip'n Sauces and squeeze bottles as well as many trial sizes,” said chief executive officer Brendan Foley in a call webcast for investors, “we expect to drive improved hot sauce consumption trends in the second half.”