The Wienermobile Road Rally: Absurdity Sells on Social Media

There was a time, not so long ago, when certain people said irony was dead.

Given the deadly serious problems facing the world and the earnest endeavors to right them, there was, this school of thought held, no market for the fey, mordant or satirical. 

Talk about a concept leaping into the dustbin of history. Stick that one in your arched eyebrow.

Irony, campiness and humor are back. Not just as entertainment, but as promotional strategies with, as they used to say, legs. And it appears that social media twinned with brand management is a primary factor in this movement.

Event, or experiential, marketing has seized the time. Rather than wallow in despair, the market appears to be crying out for a good chuckle. So otherwise sober-sided mega corporations like Kraft, the multi-billion parent of Oscar Mayer Wieners, a US hot dog brand, are investing time and resources in engaging with customers.

It appears that people like to interact with images they recognize, ones that connect them to the wider world beyond their own home and they are willing, even eager, to go to great lengths to interact with these blatant sales tactics wrapped in popular mythology. Whether increased sales will justify the effort expended remains a matter of some debate. But in an arms-length world, making a connection may make a difference. JL

Stuart Elliot reports in the New York Times:

A summer promotional mainstay, the mobile marketing tour of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles, is being rebooted as a cross-country road rally in a change that is emblematic of how Madison Avenue is remaking event marketing under the influence of social media

The revamped tour, called the Wienermobile Run, is to be announced on Monday by Oscar Mayer, part of the Kraft Foods Group. To encourage consumers to follow the promotion on social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the young men and women who drive the six Wienermobiles — Hotdoggers, in Oscar Mayer parlance — are being organized into teams.

Each team’s vehicle gets its own name — among them, Autobuhn, DriftDog and SpeedyWiener — and hashtag. The teams will race around the country accumulating points as the drivers perform tasks or challenges submitted by the public on a Web site, wienermobilerun.com.

“People have interacted with our Wienermobiles for decades,” said Tom Bick, senior director for integrated marketing at Oscar Mayer in Madison, Wis., by, for instance, waving as they drove past or “visiting them in the parking lots of supermarkets.”

“Now, we have the tools for people to really, really interact with them,” he added, as the Wienermobiles become “powerful social media engagement vehicles.”

“What we’re trying to do is create stronger bonds between the Wienermobiles and consumers,” Mr. Bick said, by cultivating “communities of support” in the form of the six teams.

The promotion is an effort to mash up “the classic cross-country road rally with gamification,” he added — that is, the infusion of marketing campaigns with aspects of online games or video games.

Oscar Mayer is working on the Wienermobile Run with Olson PR, the public relations division of Olson, which became the public relations agency of record for the brand in September.

“If someone handed you the keys to six giant hot dogs on wheels, what would you do?” asked Jody Moore, vice president at the Chicago office of Olson PR. The answer, she said, was to develop a campaign that would “put the Wienermobiles in the hands of their fans.”

“The folks at Oscar Mayer are flooded with requests to have the Wienermobiles show up at parties and events,” Ms. Moore said. “This is giving people what they wanted for a really long time.”

The Wienermobile Run is not the only example of how social media are transforming event marketing, also referred to as experiential marketing, as advertisers venture onto American highways for summer road trips. The trend, which was under way last year, seems to be accelerating.

“For our Silverado truck launch we feel it’s got to be a visceral experience, not just a visual experience,” said Maria Rohrer, director of marketing for Chevrolet trucks at the Chevrolet division of General Motors in Detroit.

“So absolutely we’re building social media into a boots-on-the-ground strategy” to introduce the 2014 Silverado pickups, she added, which includes bringing trucks to 34 locations around Texas, where the rollout began last week, to be followed by visits to 37 locations throughout the rest of the country, including “a grand opening of a Cabela’s” sporting goods store and the Brickyard 400 Nascar race.

Another Kraft Foods Group brand, A.1. steak sauce, is developing an experiential component for a campaign, carrying the theme “A.1. for life,” that began in late June and includes the brand’s page on Facebook. The idea is to offer consumers “an A.1. upgraded experience at a concert or a sporting event,” said Brett Castle, brand manager for A.1. at Kraft in Glenview, Ill., which would “bring to life” how using A.1. improves the taste of steak or other foods.

“There’s an opportunity to celebrate and reward passionate fans,” he added, “and bring new people into the franchise.”

The A.1. campaign is being created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, part of MDC Partners. “It’s letting A.1. lovers know we love them back,” said Bob Winter, executive creative director at the Crispin Porter office in Miami, by “not just talking about the spirit of ‘A.1. for life,’ but by demonstrating it in the real world, creating experiences to help people see what it’s like to live A.1.”

Mr. Winter said he envisioned a section at a concert hall, stadium or arena that “would be branded with the A.1. logo, and the people who get to sit in those seats would get great seats and get served a big, juicy, delicious steak while watching their event.”

Discussions also are under way about creating “the world’s first sauce-related credit card,” Mr. Winter said, laughing, which would offer consumers found through platforms like social media a telephone number to call to “receive A.1. steak sauce anywhere in the world.”

“We’re considering sending the card to a handful of celebrities who’ve proved themselves to be A.1. lovers,” he added, “and a regular person, not a celebrity, who’s also proved himself or herself an ‘A.1. for life’ fan.”

“They’ll talk about, and get buzz for, the brand,” Mr. Winter said. “By giving these people a voice, you turn them into the media for the campaign.”

The campaign also has elements in traditional media like ads in publications that include ESPN the Magazine, People, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, US Weekly and USA Today. Those ads carry the headline “Life is too short to live A.2.”