Jersey Mike’s engages sports fans with Tailgate Trivia
Team talk
An official sponsor of over 40 NCAA schools including many in Power 5 conferences, U.S. sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s Subs wanted to drive brand awareness and increase sales across its thousands of stores.
It was ready to launch its “Tailgate Tour” marketing campaign, giving away free subs at colleges through the football season – but needed a digital strategy to attract fans into its funnel and convert them into monetizable customers.
Jersey Mike’s brief:
- Create a new free-to-play (F2P) game to maximize existing IP rights (40+ NCAA sponsorships)
- Drive fans to download the Jersey Mike’s app and become a MyMike’s member (Jersey Mike’s rewards program)
- Promote the F2P game to fans at scale, with ad spend to buy media space
Tactics
We created Tailgate Trivia, a series of 49 college football quizzes that test fans’ knowledge on individual NCAA schools.
Available to play via the Jersey Mike’s mobile app, the interactive game integrates the brand’s “MyMike” loyalty scheme, rewarding fans with in-store offers and discounts the better they perform, alongside a chance to win x4 tickets to the NCAA Rose Bowl.
With a diverse range of questions, Tailgate Trivia appeals to fans across America. And to promote sign-ups, we ran a series of programmatic media campaigns, targeting NCAA fans with personalized ads via our exclusive audience data network.
Tailgate Trivia includes unique social sharing features to drive fan interaction while giving Jersey Mike’s valuable first-party audience data to use in future marketing.
Final result
Tailgate Trivia drove major awareness for Jersey Mike’s through the college football season while driving new leads, sales and capturing rich new audience data.
- Over 185k users engaged and played Tailgate Trivia
- Over 45 mill impressions among NCAA fans – generated via custom new creative
- Digital kiosks built for Trivia-playing across various locations during the NCAA season
“Genius’ understanding of our brand goals and the U.S. landscape is seriously impressive. We wanted to connect with college football fans in an interactive way and Tailgate Trivia helped us build a real sense of community and loyalty.”
Jeff Hemschoot, VP – Marketing, Jersey Mike’s