Commentary

Kellanova CMO: 'Big Brands Do Big Things'

Pop-Tarts Edible Mascot proved to be marketing’s real college football champion last year, winning a Cannes Lion Grand Prix, a Grand Clio, and a gold Jay Chiat Award. The gimmick became the year’s runaway meme hit, generating 15 times more brand mentions than the 10 other non-Kellanova-sponsored bowl games combined. 

The company’s Cheez-It activations have also achieved big wins. Julie Bowerman, CMO, knows that means there is a lot of pressure to make sure this year’s game activations do just as well. She tells CPG Insider what’s behind the company’s big commitment to college games, and how they drive sales.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPG Insider: Between sponsoring the Pop-Tart Bowl and the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl, Kellanova has a tremendous investment in college football. Can you walk us through the decision-making process, and how you’ve sized up the risks and rewards of live sports opportunities?

Julie Bowerman: This is our seventh year for Cheez-It in the bowl arena and our second for Pop-Tarts, so we've been at it a bit. Strategically, bowl games and other big-event windows like this make sense. We like to say that big brands do big things, and these events are places to play to create that scale. More importantly, though, when you think about football as an occasion, and everything that goes around that in stadiums or at home, snacking is very much top of mind. As a snacking company, we want to take advantage of that.

So, being in football, which are major events with high relevance for our consumers, makes sense.

Of course, how you do that -- how you activate a brand and bring it to life in connection to the games -- those are the details we have a lot of discussion about.

CPG Insider: Gen Z is a prime snacking audience and not very interested in TV, so live sports are one of the few ways to reach them. What can you tell us about Kellanova’s Gen Z audience? Are they football fanatics? Or just watching a little on TikTok?

Bowerman: It’s a case for creating a whole multichannel experience. They’re using all different channels, so what we do has to be 360 degrees and work across all those touch points. The questions are the same: How does this platform work with our fans, and does it resonate? Does it drive against our brand equity and brand objectives? Is it the right consumer audience?

CPG Insider: Tell us what’s happening this year for Pop-Tarts Bowl. Last year’s Edible Mascot approach won so many awards and so much attention for the brand. How will you top that?

Bowerman: We're not necessarily looking at it as topping last year’s success. We had a breakthrough moment, and that signals to us that this is the right venue, the right asset, the right partnership and the right platform for our brand to play.

And I would argue that what we have in store for this year will be pretty breakthrough.

CPG Insider: Did you know, when you first saw the plans for the Edible Mascot last year, that the idea would be such a monstrous hit? These things are always something of a crap shoot, and every year some brilliant marketing campaigns fail to connect with consumers.

Bowerman: I did have a gut feeling that it would be successful, and when I first saw it, I thought, 'Yes, this is it.’ It balanced the ethos of our brand in such a fun, silly, playful way. But no, we didn’t think, 'This will win a Grand Prix.’


CPG Insider: The mascot died in the end when the winning team ate the whole thing. A little dark, right?

Bowerman: You’re watching the Pop-Tart go to its final resting place. That makes you a little uneasy as a marketer. But from a gut standpoint, we knew it was a good idea -- and it was all about how we executed it.

CPG Insider: The activation was also a little surprising in that Pop-Tarts are a breakfast food and not a snack most would associate with game day.

Bowerman: Snacking spans salty and sweet. And for sure, for most of the Pop-Tarts brand history, it has been associated with mornings. But we're seeing that consumers are expanding their snacking occasions pretty dramatically. This is an opportunity to expand across different consumer needs. That’s why this football opportunity works. We can position Pop-Tarts as appropriate anytime.

CPG Insider: Cheez-It is a salty snack, so a much more conventional game-day choice. That also means there are more competitors. This year, you’ve got a fun “Fantaseez” contest, and you’ll make some fans' dreams come true on Game Day, like a Two-Minute Timeout Wedding, officiated by Ched-Z. After seven years, is it getting harder to think of new ways to promote the brand through the football connection?

Bowerman: The Cheez-It ethos is about being absurdly cheesy. That’s our lens. And the salty snack category is very developed, with many big brands. But no other brand is quite this distinct, with the taste and the crunch. And that lens has enabled us to do some crazy things. One year, we created Cheez-It-themed hotel rooms for some of the players; another time, we did an in-stadium barbershop. This year, we’ve got the Cheez Wheelz Food Truck going to tailgate parties.

They are silly but bring the food experience to life within the bowl game, all in this absurdly cheesy framework.

CPG Insider: How do you bring that to life in advertising for the millions who never go to a live game? You’ve got that passionate football coach pep-talking Cheez-It players in the locker room. How does that fit in?

Bowerman: Creating those ads requires a certain amount of gut instinct. We’re looking for something silly, something that will resonate. Ads need a level of absurdity that makes them comical and relatable.

CPG Insider: How much of your budget goes to these games or live sports?

Bowerman: I can’t comment on our budget or percentages, but football is one of the largest pillars of the brands. We activate them in many more ways beyond football, but these events pay off by building brand value. Cheez-It saw 280% year-over-year growth in college markets last year. Pop-Tarts sold 21 million more toaster pastries in the eight weeks after the Pop-Tarts Bowl than it did during the eight weeks before the game.

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