By Jessica Olszyk, MBA Candidate, Kilts Marketing Fellow
As Alex Sotiropoulos ’21 puts it, “Pop-Tarts didn’t just throw darts at the wall” when designing the Pop-Tarts Bowl activation. The outrageous elements like edible mascots, the resurrection of those mascots, and toasters in trophies tear apart college football rituals.
To the untrained eye, the unconventionality of these elements may seem out there or just plain ridiculous – which is kind of the point. As Alex stated multiple times, data, psychographics, and brand parameters all guided the Pop-Tarts team in deciding which marketing bets were worth making.
Pop-Tarts was looking to target consumers of all ages. “Unconventionality” resurfaced as a core Pop-Tarts trait, tracing back to the brand’s unconventional roots as a “toast-but-not-quite” in the 1960s. Placing these core brand tenets at the forefront, sporting events were a natural fit. Bowl games, with their exhibitionist air, felt an approachable, brand-oriented match. Infusing the unconventional spirit of Pop-Tarts into such a deeply ritualistic and semi “serious” (but not really) game is a stroke of great marketing.
It’s this inversion of game rituals that Alex and his team landed on that really inspired me. With brand guardrails in place, they were able to dig into rituals like the trophy ceremonies and mascots and ask “what if?” For me, this mix of data-driven insights and purposeful disruption is what showcases Alex and his team’s creativity.
This is what Chicago Booth marketing excellence is to me – the intertwining of rigorous analytics to undergird and guide decisions melded with creative ideas borne from a human spark. No data could have proven the idea of an edible mascot that is resurrected with tongue-in-cheek imagery. This data plus human skill set is difficult to cultivate, but once it is introduced the muscle can be strengthened. Seeing a live case like this was invaluable; the “peek under the hood” felt like an incredible privilege and a prompt to consider how I can train that muscle.
Hearing the live story of the genius laid within the work, from very raw data and psychographics down to the thought process was like getting the workout plan straight from Alex. This is the way marketers in data-driven organizations make decisions but also, quite frankly, have some of the coolest jobs in the corporate sphere. During my classes at Chicago Booth, I’ll be sure to begin training myself in this creative yet analytical thought pattern. It’ll be tough, but the outcome is going to be… crazy good
