Snausages – Baseball

February 25, 2010 by Chris · Leave a Comment 

Challenge

Snausages dog snacks are all about having fun with your dog. Our challenge was to help bring the brand to life while helping generate awareness and trial.

Solution

Baseball is the National pastime and what better way to watch the ballgame than with your trusty dog by your side. Thanks to Snausages, our program allowed dog owners to not just watch the games at home on TV, but now they could actually bring their dog to the ballpark and cheer on the hometown team….together! Based upon market relevance for the brand, targeted retailer presence and the popularity & cooperativeness of the teams, Sports Strategies aligned Snausages with key Major League and Minor League Baseball teams.

Each team hosted a Snausages Dog Day in the Park (where dogs could attend) and included appearances by Snocrates (brand mascot), doggie contests, a doggie bag of goodies for the dogs and more. Partnerships with local animal shelters were developed to extend the program’s reach and donations were raised to support their efforts. Also, consumer promotions offered prizing and discounted tickets to help activate with retail customers.

Results

Snausages Dog Days in the Park were a big hit! Hundreds of dogs (and their owners) attended each of our events. The wonderful imagery of dogs at the ballpark and the charitable tie-in resulted in tremendous media coverage for the brand. Retail partners were secured in each market and led to an 18% increase in case sales. The combination of all factors led to a post event surveys of brand perception showing 76% responding “more favorably”…..woof!

Snausages – Youth Soccer

February 25, 2010 by Chris · Leave a Comment 

Challenge

Snausages is a leader in the Dog Snacks category and was looking to increase its reach to kids….who play and exercise with their dogs. The brand wanted to develop a test program in either of its two HQ Markets (San Francisco or Pittsburgh) that could help determine if local marketing through youth soccer would deliver quality results, and if so, could a template be developed to extend the program nationally.

While there’s no doubt that youth soccer drives a huge following from millions of participants and their families, its mainly volunteer-based infrastructure creates many operational challenges for cost-effective local- market activation. Sports Strategies needed to uncover the right opportunity.

Solution

After weighing the opportunities available through AYSO, US Youth Soccer, local professional teams and other related properties, we identified that the Pittsburgh stop on the national Sports Illustrated for Kids 3v3 tour could deliver the platform we were seeking for our test. This option offered a quality event (5,000+ participants/families) in the right market, an attractive cross-promotional partner (Sports Illustrated for Kids), on-site execution by a professional agency with accountability…and the opportunity to extend in to 50+ events as part of a national tour if the local test was deemed successful.

We partnered Snausages with the event which delivered pre-promotion and on-site visibility to build equity. Interactive games, Snausages temporary tattoos, appearances by the Snocrates mascot and logoed premiums helped integrate the brand in to the event. Additionally, a consumer program offering tournament registration discounts helped leverage the program at retail.

Results

This program successfully delivered a viable national youth soccer marketing platform for Snausages. It effectively tapped in to the local youth soccer market and delivered retail activation. Additionally, local and on-site execution was reliable and professional. Finally, the 50+ city tour and attractive Sports Illustrated for Kids umbrella sponsor delivered a cost-effective template to extend the program on a national basis.