In baseball, they say speed kills. In social marketing, speed thrills.
If something explodes in the always-ephemeral social zeitgeist you have to move quickly, and smartly, to take advantage. As a sponsor of the very hot and still winning Toronto Blue Jays (no jinx), Boston Pizza has done just that the past month or so.
The Canadian chain’s “Fan Stories” campaign launched at the start of the year with Taxi-produced TV spots that use the tagline “We’ll make you a fan” to underscore the brand’s positioning as a destination for families and sports fans to watch whatever big game might be on TV while enjoying a meal.
The latest ad, “Trophy Model,” promotes home delivery and launched for the start of the hockey season, but also coincided with the Toronto Blue Jays regular season division title and run into the postseason.
“Our most successful campaigns combine some good smart creative that is culturally relevant, but also with that sense of humour that has defined the brand over the last four or five years,” said Boston Pizza vice-president of marketing Alex Green.
“Trophy Model is a great example of the funny, slightly absurd, humorous yet strategically sound work we love to create together,” added Taxi account director Jessica Lax.
“And luckily we have a great opportunity right now with the Jays’ playoff run to extend the idea into social executions and really help throw our support behind the team.”
As they saw momentum start to build with the Jays and people were talking about the TV spot, Boston Pizza shifted some resources toward activating the Trophy Model around the Jays, said Green.
A location right outside the Jays’ home-field Rogers Centre was the perfect place to have a real-life trophy model before games to take pictures with fans and encourage them to share the photos on social using #BPTrophymodel. A studio was used for more structured photos to recreate fan-favourite Blue Jays moments. None were bigger (so far, no jinx) than Jose Bautista’s instant classic homerun and bat flip in game five of the division series against the Texas Rangers on Oct. 14.
And while everyone was talking about the homerun, a video surfaced of a young Jays’ fan in the stands at the game with a Bautista beard painted on his face swinging an imaginary bat in near perfect unison with the now legendary swat. The video of “mini-Bautista” quickly went viral.
Someone on the Boston Pizza activation social team recognized the young fan, Oscar Wood, as having participated in Boston Pizza’s Junior Jays program earlier in the year. Wood and his family had even stopped by the trophy activation outside the Rogers Centre before that game, said Green.
Pre-game lunch at @bostonpizza #BPTrophyModel pic.twitter.com/VpCZNuJShn
— Charlie (@WithTheWoodies) October 14, 2015
Boston Pizza invited Wood back down to Boston Pizza for Tuesday’s game, presented him with a trophy of his own, held a press conference just like the pros do, and sent him back across the street and into the Rogers Centre for another game.
The Trophy Model efforts have been a homerun (you knew that was coming) for Boston Pizza. In a typical month, Boston Pizza counts about 3.2 million mentions in social, but in the last month that has jumped to 16.4 million, said Green. And media impressions for the “mini-Bautista” press conference alone reached 13 million.
“When you think about the tagline it was such a nice fit for what we stand for as a brand,” said Green.
