The NFL season starts this week and marketers including Buffalo Wild Wings and State Farm have already launched efforts tied to the most popular sport in the U.S. Applebee’s joins that roster today (Sept. 3) with the kickoff of a campaign that sees that casual dining chain running onto the field at full speed after becoming the official grill and bar of the NFL in April.

New spots, appearing in 15- and 30-second versions, see San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley and Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell bringing their on-field skills to Applebee’s restaurants. In one instance, Campbell uses his notepad to hide his mouth as he would while calling plays.

The spots will run across national TV, NBC’s “Football Night in America” and other linear and digital channels, as well as through new integrations with NFL programming. The campaign also includes a loyalty program sweepstakes, a digital game and a content series made in collaboration with the NFL. The six-part “Pre-Seasoning — An Applebee’s Training Camp” docuseries will air across social channels.

“We love the fact that the NFL is now a 365-day entity in terms of how they provide content and engagement with their fans,” said Joel Yashinsky, who is now in his seventh year as Applebee’s CMO. “We saw a real opportunity to leverage what we knew was a natural connection with the brand, our guests and the NFL.” 

The marketing push comes at a key moment for Applebee’s, which is dealing with the same sluggish consumer demand that is effecting marketers throughout the dining landscape. The chain saw same-store sales decline 1.8% in Q2, an improvement from a 4.6% slide the prior quarter. Like other restaurant marketers, Applebee’s has leaned harder into value, putting its 50-cent boneless wings at the center of new ads.

In an interview with Marketing Dive, Yashinsky discussed the NFL partnership, Applebee’s creative strategy and how he is balancing various demands as a CMO.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

MARKETING DIVE: What does the NFL partnership mean for Applebee’s, both now and moving forward?

JOEL YASHINSKY: Applebee’s fans really over index as NFL fans, and so there was a natural connection that led to us developing the official relationship with the NFL and creating a really engaged element that would appeal to both NFL and maybe not-as-big NFL fans. It doesn’t matter where you were on the [fandom] spectrum.

We worked really closely with [ad agency] Grey to develop the ads and content series. The next piece was engaging with the right talent, so we also partnered with Genesco, an agency that works very closely with a lot of sponsorships and the NFL. 

Our “Pick Six” promotion will start in October and feature six free bonus wings every time there’s a pick six on Sunday. That piece is coming a little bit down the road, but all of these things are part of how we want to engage during the entire NFL season. Then, we’ll find ways to engage during the draft or at other points.

How do you weave value into the marketing message and still differentiate among the different tiers of restaurants?

Value is obviously critically important right now within the restaurant industry and within other industries as well. So our focus is: How do we make it relevant for our guests and with what programming and ideas we have? We have the best boneless wings in America — we won in head-to-head competition against Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop — so bringing that to life at a [low] price is important to our guests right now, especially because of the pressures they’re facing. 

Wings being a natural, football-type of food, this all works together in a way that we think will really help bring some added momentum to our September time period and how we leverage that throughout the rest of this year and into next year, because [value] is going to remain an important component to all marketing.

The campaign includes a sweepstakes for Super Bowl tickets though the Club Applebee’s loyalty program. How are you providing value but also getting that crucial data that informs your other marketing work via loyalty?

As we’re trying to work across all touch points, there’s a CRM component to our NFL sponsorship. People can do a sweepstakes to win tickets to the big game. At Applebee's, you can win tickets to the Super Bowl. That’s an important part of the partnership, in terms of the marks that you’re able to use and leverage. We’re also partnering with other NFL partners like TCL and giving away 85-inch televisions as part of weekly prizes that will be part of the CRM effort. 

Getting people to engage with us will only provide us better data to help serve them what they’re looking for and what will be relevant to them to hopefully increase their frequency. This is a nice step change for us in terms of where we’ve been with Club Applebee’s. We’ll look to obviously acquire more members to our Club Applebee’s program, really engage them with some fun giveaways of some great prizes, including autographed memorabilia and gift cards. 

Applebee’s in the past has marketed around pop culture and emerging areas like NFTs. Can you still do that while pushing value and the NFL partnership? How do you stay agile?

It’s really all about how you drive guests to your restaurants, and value is just so critically important to them right now. How do we make that fun and engaging? That’s what we’re shooting for with this NFL promotion.

We know football has, far and wide, the highest ratings on TV. We know people will see the ads, but the fan who may not be watching as much football on TV will certainly see our engagement from a social and digital standpoint when we’re running “Pre-Seasoning” on YouTube, TikTok and X. We’re always looking at how we utilize social and digital, especially for Gen Z, and millennials to a certain extent.

Our guests range in age from four to 94, and I think that we need to really make sure that we are out there reaching each of those guests and each of the demographics in a way that’s relevant and fun and brings across the Applebee’s brand in ways that they expect.