Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Stars: A Mayo Movement

Do you have what it takes to become a Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star? All you need is an internet connection and a little love for the Duke’s Mayonnaise brand. So, inherently, any sane person already has the secret sauce (we really had to bite our tongues to not say “secret mayo”).

Through Luquire’s long-standing relationship with Charlotte Sports Foundation, the owners and operators of the Duke’s Mayo Classic and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl – Charlotte’s regular and post-season college football series – the agency was introduced to the marketing team at Duke’s Mayonnaise. Originally, enlisted to help develop a title sponsor announcement like no other as well as powerful brand marks for both the Classic and the Bowl, the relationship grew as Duke’s Mayo looked to Luquire to get the most out of its strategic investments.

As a mayonnaise and condiments brand, sponsoring a college football game located in the heart of your core markets plants a rather large flag in the ground and certainly puts the Hellmann’s and Krafts of the world on watch. However, Duke’s Mayo did not want to leave it at that – there was a larger vision in mind on how to activate the platform and Luquire was there to support. We developed a “thematic,” something that would tie sponsorship of these football games to their recently launched brand campaign, “Duke’s. It’s got Twang™,” so that all of its marketing efforts would feel cohesive. 

The output: Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star, which leans into the idea that when you choose Duke’s Mayonnaise, you add Twang to your gameday dishes, giving you the edge you need to be the champion (Y’all-Star) of every football get-together. This thematic needed to work hard across numerous channels – Online, Social, PR, Retail, Restaurant/Commerce Partners and Game Day Experience – so we took it even a step further, bringing action to it by evolving to the Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star Sweepstakes.

This sweeps runs for 18 weeks throughout the college football season, giving Duke’s Mayo fans the opportunity to win unique prizes every entry period, ranging from game tickets to gift cards to branded tailgate swag, and culminating in a grand prize featuring a unique on-field experience at the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Entrants only need to provide an email and some other basic info to have a chance to win, plus the exclusive weekly prizes entice individuals to come back every week to re-enter.

Development of Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star and the idea of a sweepstakes was a great start, but we also needed to promote this to the world. To do so, we developed a landing page where football fans could enter the sweepstakes and win the Duke’s Mayo branded prizes we helped design. This online experience served as the destination for social and programmatic banners that our team built out and utilized within the Duke’s Mayo media buy. We also concepted and output creative to support a Twang Tour, an eight-week mobile activation where a Duke’s Mayo branded truck and trailer traveled around key Southern markets and set up shop at commerce and restaurant partners to promote the sweepstakes, leading up to an onsite presence at the Duke’s Mayo Classic the week of the games.

Operated and staffed by Bespoke – the best in the business when it comes to experiential marketing – giveaways, tailgate games, photo opportunities and digital sweepstakes sign-ups for onsite entry were major parts of the Twang Tour which created a buzz around Duke’s Mayo heading into college football season.

Duke’s Mayonnaise, the beloved Southern brand known for bringing Twang to your table, was the unlikely hero of the college football bowl season last year. Between broken trophies and mayo cooler dump teasers, the 100+-year-old brand made a huge splash in its first-ever season as the title sponsor of the Duke’s Mayo Classic and Duke’s Mayo Bowl – a season that we all know was unlike any other due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

So how do you follow that up and ride the momentum for the brand that was generated last December? The Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star Sweepstakes, combined with mayo moments like this and this that took place during the Duke’s Mayo Classic Doubleheader this past Labor Day weekend, are doing the trick.

During the Duke’s Mayo Classic Doubleheader weekend, where East Carolina played Appalachian State on Thursday and Georgia played Clemson on Saturday, millions of eyes were on Duke’s Mayo and the events they helped bring to life. In fact, Georgia vs. Clemson, a matchup of two top-five teams, was the second most-watched college kickoff game since 2001 with 8.9 million viewers according to ESPN. The game also led to a one-day record for hotel demand in the area, with the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority reporting 28,662 hotel rooms sold. Not bad visibility for a challenger brand that’s on its way to becoming a national household name.

Enter now for your chance to be a Duke’s Mayo Y’all-Star!