Baseball fans can be superstitious, and Seattle Mariners supporters are no exception. Some eat dirt, others down drinks, and at least one hired a witch in the hopes of helping the team win.
Rick Rizzs, a longtime broadcaster for the team, eats Cheetos.
During this year’s American League Division Series (ALDS), Rizzs had his snacking superstition brand-approved. After the Cheetos team caught wind of his snack of choice, they inked a short-term partnership with the Mariners for the series—and the Mariners made it through, leaving the Detroit Tigers in the (Cheeto) dust to advance to the American League Championship Series (ALCS).
If the Mariners are able to win the series against the Toronto Blue Jays (the teams head into Game 3 Wednesday night), they’d be off to their first-ever World Series appearance.
While sports deals are common for some other brands in the PepsiCo portfolio, Cheetos had never previously ventured into official team or league deals, Chris Bellinger, chief creative officer of PepsiCo Foods US, said. But between the specific superstition and general excitement around baseball, Bellinger said it was an opportunity he simply couldn’t pass up.
“When you have something like a superstition come up, I mean, between us and Etsy witches, of course we want to be a part of that,” Bellinger told Marketing Brew. “October baseball is special, and so being able to play along with that is huge.”
Out of the park
As the Seattle Times tells it, Rizzs ate a bag of Cheetos during a 2018 game when the Mariners performed well. The next night, when the team was struggling, the team’s GM gave Rizzs another bag, and the Mariners ended up winning. The tradition, which had faded away, was reborn this season during the team’s 10-game winning streak.
Rizzs posted about it on his social media and tagged Cheetos, which caught the attention of the brand’s community managers, Bellinger said. The story eventually made its way to Belliger’s desk, and as a baseball player and fan of the game himself, he bought in. Within days, Cheetos and the Mariners had struck up a short-term partnership for the duration of the ALDS, he said.
One of the first things the brand team did was to send their mascot, Chester Cheetah, to the broadcasting booth to deliver Rizzs “an emergency case of Cheetos to break in case [the Mariners] were ever losing,” Bellinger said. Chester also handed out samples ahead of Game 1 of the series at Victory Hall at the Boxyard, a venue across the street from the Mariners’ home stadium that’s popular among sports fans.
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“If you’re the lucky charm, you’ve got to show up,” Bellinger said.
Beyond sending Chester to Seattle, Cheetos has run social, digital out-of-home, and radio content with the Mariners throughout the postseason, he said. The social team started by commenting on posts about Cheetos and the Mariners, and the content eventually evolved to become more integrated, Bellinger said, like posts incorporating the Mariners’ trident.
The social approach has been “super successful” so far, with over 100,000 views and a 5% engagement rate between two posts with Rizzs—almost 2x the average engagement rate for the brand on Instagram, he said.
“People are having fun with it,” Bellinger said. “I think that’s the key…You find a fanbase, you tap into what they know, and you’re authentic about it.”
Cool cat
The Cheetos brand team doesn’t currently have anything planned for the ALCS or beyond, but heading into tonight’s game, the Mariners are ahead 2-0, and “you never know what’s going to be happening later,” Bellinger said. Chester’s travel plans aren’t firmed up.
“Chester’s mischievous,” Bellinger said. “You never know what Chester’s gonna be up to…I’d say there’s definitely some ideation flowing around.”
Though he’s usually a Texas Rangers fan, Bellinger said the Mariners are his “new adopted team,” and he’s hoping for a World Series run. Between MLB teams (including the Mariners) having fun on social and the Savannah Bananas shaking up the baseball world, Bellinger said the sport “feels perfect” for the Cheetos brand.
“Baseball is seeing a huge resurgence right now,” he said. “I think it’s primed for embracing the unserious, making the serious unserious, making the game more fun. I say this as somebody who played baseball my whole life. It is very tradition-oriented, but at the same time, it’s just fun.”
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