Luquire Serves Up Football With a Side of Mayo

Mayonnaise is a Southern staple on sandwiches and in chicken salad, pimento cheese, deviled eggs and countless other recipes. It’s also now a key ingredient in one of the Queen City’s most beloved sporting traditions: the regular and postseason college football games held each year at Bank of America Stadium. Duke’s Mayonnaise is the new title sponsor for the games, which will be known as Duke’s Mayo Classic and Duke’s Mayo Bowl beginning this fall.

If the Charlotte Sports Foundation was the executive chef of the new partnership, Luquire was the sous chef as the team worked to redesign the games’ identities and unveil the new brands to sports fans everywhere. The announcement video featured a humorous logo reveal by former Carolina Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly, followed by ESPN’s Maria Taylor virtually interviewing CSF Executive Director Danny Morrison and Martin Kelly, president and CEO of Duke’s parent company Sauer Brands Inc..

A 16-person integrated team from just about every discipline in the agency worked in lock step with the client team and other partners to develop the videos, new logos, out-of-home advertisements, paid social posts, an updated website and press materials for the announcement.

The effort connected with 3.2 billion people in June and earned national coverage in outlets like The Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, ESPN, the NFL Network and USA Today. The effort behind the announcement was also recently featured in The Athletic, where Brendan Marks wrote: “So even if it’s not the most successful announcement, it’s clearly in that realm. At the very least, it’s the only title sponsorship announcement being made in the midst of a global pandemic. That alone makes this case something of an anomaly.”

We – like many – are hungry for football season, so here’s hoping that we’re able to watch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Wake Forest Demon Deacons safely take the field in the inaugural Duke’s Mayo Classic come September.