The marriage of the Pop-Tart brand to the American Idols Live! tour can be compared to the Demi Moore-Ashton Kutcher romance. The icon had fallen under the radar screen, hooked up with the hot new property, and once again became a household name.
Starcom Entertainment, Chicago, was the matchmaker for Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts “Freeze ’em, then Eat ’em” promotion. Tom Weeks and his team linked the brand to the tour, then used the concert series to introduce a limited-edition flavor (Hot Fudge Sundae) and showed the teens and tweens at the 40 tour stops a new way to eat them (frozen).
The campaign did much more than put the Pop-Tarts brand name on the American Idols Live! tour. It involved online ad units that appeared with American Idol content, a live performance by two “idols” at the Kellogg annual sales meeting, stadium and on-stage signage, audio “shout-outs” as the presenting sponsor and sampling of the frozen goods at the shows.
And in the end, Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts became about as popular as Reuben and Clay. The product reached more than 30 million teens, and sales of Pop-Tarts soared 26.2%. Sixty percent of teens and tweens who were aware of the brand tie-in with American Idol said they felt better about Pop-Tarts, and for the first time in a year and a half, base dollars for the product increased for 13 weeks straight.
“Ultimately, we took a brand that people had taken for granted and made consumers start thinking about it in a different way,” says Kellogg’s senior marketing director Stan Jacot. “This was a marriage made in heaven. American Idols Live! was the hottest ticket of the summer and it became the centerpiece for the whole Chill ’em campaign.”
But once the houselights went back on and the tour buses rolled away, the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tart promotion needed reinforcement. This was done at store level with the placement of Pop-Tarts in freezer chests, point-of-sale communication and an on-package sweeps that allowed winners to receive the American Idol CD-ROM game.
“I was talking with Jeff Montie [president of Kellogg’s Morning Foods Division] during a show and he said he though the sponsorship of the event was the best integrated effort he’s seen in a long time,” Weeks says. “Pop-Tarts and American Idol are American icons that live under the pop culture umbrella, resulting in the partnering of two brands that are relevant to teens and tweens heightening the connectivity of their collective message.”
The overall cost of the promotion wasn’t disclosed, but Laura Caraccioli-Davis, Starcom’s director of Entertainment Cost, says it was “significantly less” than the reported $20 million sponsors paid to the Fox network for a role in American Idol’s second season.
Pop-Tarts will be the presenting partner of this year’s American Idols Live! tour, but all involved have been tight-lipped about what flavor pastry treat, or way of eating it, will be launched.
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