There was a time when a soft-drink company seeking a professional football sponsorship would have led with the quarterback, or perhaps the head coach, or at minimum someone who actually takes the field. Poppi, the prebiotic soda brand that has spent the last several years elbowing its way into a category long dominated by legacy giants, has chosen a different entry point: the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
The sponsorship, announced this week, places Poppi inside AT&T Stadium with pouring rights, retail branding, and the usual assortment of signage and giveaway opportunities. But the centerpiece, according to Kristina MacIntosh, the brand's senior vice president of marketing, is the cheerleading squad and its considerable social media following — a audience that grew substantially after the squad became the subject of a Netflix documentary series last year.
"We really sit within those sidelines of culture," Ms. MacIntosh said, a phrase she repeated with evident satisfaction. "We want to make sure that it makes sense for the brand to connect with highly engaged communities."
The deal reflects what has become Poppi's broader strategy in sports marketing, which is to say, not quite sports marketing at all. The brand has appeared around the Super Bowl and the N.B.A. Finals, but Ms. MacIntosh was careful to note that traditional athletics sponsorship — the kind that involves athletes doing athletic things — is not precisely the goal. (The goal, one gathers, is to be nearby when people are looking at their phones.)
Both Poppi and the Cowboys are based in Dallas, a geographic coincidence that Ms. MacIntosh suggested carried symbolic weight. Both brands, she said, "have grown into brands that have that cultural relevance beyond just their standard category."
She declined to discuss any Super Bowl plans for next year, but allowed that she has been thinking about fictional sports properties, particularly in the romance genre. The sidelines, it seems, extend further than one might have imagined.
Original story published in Marketing Brew: "Poppi’s latest sports deal puts it ‘on the sidelines of culture’"