After winning the Pop-Tarts Bowl on Dec. 28 in Orlando, Fla., the Kansas State football team gathered on the field around a toaster the size of a protected garage by two mall police officers wearing “Snack Security” shirts.
An unusual chant broke out: “Toast to this mascot!” Raise a toast to this mascot! » — like Strawberry, a giant Pop-Tart with limbsclimbed on top of the toaster, dancing to the disco beat of Donna Summer's “Hot Stuff.”
“We will always love you, Strawberry,” announcer Jason Ryan Perry said over the stadium's public address system. “I can’t wait to eat you.”
For nearly three hours, Strawberry had worked the crowd as one of the surprise stars of the game — and of the entire college bowling season, no small feat for an anthropomorphized breakfast pastry. By the time Strawberry tossed aside a sign reading “Dreams Really Do Come True” so it could happily slide into a slot and toast its crust to golden-brown perfection, the internet was about to crater.
Sure enough, Strawberry soon came out of the toaster as an edible version of himself. The victorious players pounced, gorging themselves on Strawberry by the handful until all that remained – RIP, Strawberry – was his left eye.
“I think these guys were really hungry,” Heidi Ray, senior director of brand marketing for Pop-Tarts, said in a phone interview.
In a crowded market, the Pop-Tarts Bowl – renamed this year after previously being the Cheez-It Bowl, the Camping World Bowl and several other nicknames – managed to do something special: elevate an otherwise ordinary game into a viral sensation.
Michigan and Washington will face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff national championship game, but in an era where there are more than 40 bowl games per season, including just two – the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl, serving as a national championship. championship semifinals – carrying any significance, the Pop-Tarts Bowl won the Internet.
Or, at the very least, it shared the Internet championship with Duke's Mayo Bowl.
From a competitive perspective, the playoff system, which debuted in 2014 and will add quarter-final matches next year, turned other bowls into artifacts of a bygone era when they meant more to teams — and their conferences — than they do today. As a result, many prominent players with NFL aspirations opt out of games if there is nothing at stake.
None of this has slowed the brisk pace in favor of even more bowl games, which generate decent audiences and ad revenue during the holidays.
With so many mostly meaningless bowls – the Guaranteed Rate Bowl and the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl, the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl and the Avocados from Mexico Cure Bowl – the most intense competition isn't necessarily between the teams on the field but between brands who are hoping for a fleeting (and profitable) moment of virality.
“I think doing it in a unique and fun way is an important way to keep bowling relevant,” said Miller Yoho, director of marketing and communications for the Charlotte Sports Foundation, which hosts Duke's Mayo Bowl. “Honestly, this is the biggest topic we’ve talked about in the 10 years I’ve been doing it.”
When Duke's Mayo, a condiment company based in Richmond, Virginia, began sponsoring the game in 2020 — it had previously been sponsored by, among others, Meineke Car Care Center — the feeling was that the company “had to do something something different to make mayonnaise fresh again,” said Joe Tuza, president of condiments for Sauer Brands, owner of Duke's Mayo. By partnering with college football, the brand sought to capitalize on its share of made-for-the-internet moments, planned or unplanned.
Since 2021, the winning coach of the game is doused in a cooler full of mayonnaise while Tubby, the mascot with aggressive eyebrows, raises his arms triumphantly and Mr. Tuza stands nearby with a check the size of a cartoon. The incentive for the coach is that $10,000 will be donated to a charity of their choice.
“Every time I go on stage with the trophies, the players start chanting: 'Mayo dump!' Mayo dump!' ” said Mr. Tuza. “It’s like a reward for them to see their coach get hosed after all the hard work they’ve done.”
And while various skeptics, including Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefsa notorious mayonnaise hater, questioned if it's really mayonnaiseBoth Mr. Tuza and Mr. Yoho vouched for its authenticity.
“It’s 100 percent mayonnaise,” Mr. Yoho said. “I have felt it. They have to stir it to get the right viscosity.
Before this season's game on Dec. 27, Duke's Mayo upped the ante by holding a draft-style selection to select the two people who would throw mayonnaise on the winning coach. (This was a lingering consequence of the 2021 game, when South Carolina coach Shane Beamer was accidentally hit on the head by the cooler; Duke's Mayo later sent him a helmet.) Mr. Yoho said he watched the combine live.
“I just see people covered in mayonnaise trying to catch a football,” he said. “I'm like, 'What's going on?' »
This extra effort paid off. Duke's Mayo had a record day of online sales during this year's game, Mr. Tuza said, and the company hopes to generate about $10 million in brand exposure, more than double its investment.
“Given the size of our company, this is a significant investment for us,” Mr. Tuza said, “so we really had to make it work.” We had to execute and not just put our name on the sponsorship.
In the middle of a crowded bowling landscape, complacency will leave you behind. Bowling season never rests, not entirely. For example, one of the attractions at the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl was a branded spa – “Feelin' the Cheeziest” – i.e. now available for purchase on eBay, with proceeds going to the Florida Citrus Sports Foundation. (Status: used.)
And the day after Duke's Mayo Bowl, Mr. Yoho was part of a text chain with colleagues who were already looking forward to the 2024 edition of the game. The gist of those messages?
“OK, we just saw the Pop-Tarts Bowl, and here we go,” Mr. Yoho recalled.
The Pop-Tarts phenomenon was something to behold, largely because of the exploits of Strawberry, played by Barry Anderson, a former Chicago Bulls mascot. In her first and only public appearance, Strawberry danced with her fans, handed out miniature versions of herself, and congratulated herself on her own demise. (Thanks to the magic of television, Mr. Anderson did not make his toast.)
“It far exceeded all our expectations,” Ms. Ray said, adding: “We didn't need to fake anything. That's right on brand. That's how we treat networks social events every day of the year. We just brought a little bit of that world to the world of college football.
And while Strawberry is now the most publicized individual Pop-Tart in the brand's 60-year history, Kellanova produces about three billion treats a year, Ms. Ray said. In other words, Strawberry was not an isolated case. There is even more talent in the pipeline.
“Everyone witnessed Strawberry being consumed by the Wildcats, and he is happy in heaven because his dreams have come true,” Ms. Ray said. “But fear not: this isn’t the last time you’ll see an edible Pop-Tart as a mascot.”