The Best Time of Year

With Christmas right around the corner and the New Year coming, many consider the next few weeks to be the best time of the year. College football teams that had a good season would most likely agree with that belief. Bowl games are like an added Christmas for players and team staff whether they play on December 17th ,January 9th, or anywhere in between.

College bowl season isn’t just a great time of year if you are a fan or part of a team, it is also a perfect time for branding and to release new products. Why not sponsor a bowl game?

I recall watching the Chick-Fil-A bowl a few years back, at that point I had never been to the restaurant and didn’t lived anywhere near a Chick-Fil-A.  When I saw my first Chick-Fil-A in Phoenix I knew a few basic things: they had chicken, they had funny commercials with cows, but most importantly they sponsored football. Based on those details alone I decided to give them a try and I’m glad I did.

One of the four BCS games, the Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl, is held locally in Glendale, AZ at the University of Phoenix Stadium. Since the game is generally a few days after New Years, it teams up with the Insight Bowl just across the valley to sponsor the Fiesta Bowl block party New Year’s celebration. At the block party free samples of new Tostitos products like Artisan style chips are handed out. If you have tickets to the game you will be greeted with samples on your seat that are just the right size to make you want a bigger bag.

The events are even larger when the Tostitos BCS National Championship is held in Glendale as it was when it hosted the Oregon and Auburn game last January. In a study by Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business the economic impact from just the championship game was over $188 million. I have to admit I made a small contribution to that number by purchasing tickets to the block party as well as a bag of the new Artisan chips I had sampled.

Boise, Idaho’s hosting of the bowl game is a perfect example of the influence of advertising and branding on these games. This game usually kicks off the college bowl season, but in recent years has had a fairly unfamiliar name to most. The bowl game has changed names and sponsors in the last decade from Crucial.com, MPC Computers, and Roady’s Truck stops all sponsoring the Humanitarian bowl, to the new name and sponsor: Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

The game this year will not have a name as common as Tostitos, FedEx, or All State, but finally the fans and viewers will have something they can recognize. When almost anyone thinks of Idaho they naturally think of potatoes. Doesn’t it make sense that the game is finally represented by the symbol of Idaho? After all, the license plates even say “famous potatoes” so why hasn’t the only bowl game hosted in the state?

Idaho potato producers decided that should change this year and will pay $2.49 billion over the next 6 years to make sure the game is named after their famed product. That price includes the following:

-    A 30 second welcome to the game
-    Five 30 second TV ads during the broadcast
-    Four 30 second radio ads during the broadcast
-    Their logo on all print ads for the game
-    Two full pages in the game program
-    The official bowl logo having their name
-    Numerous stadium signs with their logo
-    Eight public address announcements
-    Eight video board announcements during the game


On top of that Idaho potatoes will seal their positive image and reach consumers across the country.

The basics of this are simple. If you have the money and want to increase awareness of a new product or branding for an existing one, why not choose a bowl game to do it? Companies can use this time to reach new targets and link their name to a huge yearly event. Whether you are an athlete, a fan, or a business this could really be your best time of year.