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.