Fireball fuels football rivalries with first-ever paid TikTok campaign

Dive Brief:

Fireball Cinnamon Whisky has launched a rivalry-fueled campaign timed to the start of the college and NFL football seasons, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.
Key to the campaign are new ads that feature comedians Andrew Santino and Stavros Halkias and poke fun at the intense rivalries tied to football fandom. The brand will also launch its first-ever paid campaign on TikTok.
The ads will air during Big 10 and Notre Dame college football games on NBC and will begin airing around the NFL season starting Sept. 6 when the Philadelphia Eagles face the Green Bay Packers, a game in which Fireball will be the exclusive sponsor of the second quarter.

Dive Insight:

Fireball, a whisky brand owned by Sazerac, is tapping into football hype for a new campaign that could help it grow loyalty across a wider audience. Notably, creative for the campaign will help support Fireball’s first-ever paid campaign on TikTok, a move that could help the brand strike a chord with key consumers like Gen Z. While the whisky brand could be considered a late-comer when it comes to paid advertising on the app, the move is a signal of how much cultural impact the social platform continues to have among valuable younger generations.

Ads for Fireball’s campaign, available in both 15- and 30-second formats, bring to life some of the outrageous bets made by football fans around the outcome of a game. In “Tattoo Time!” comedians Santino and Halkias are seen reacting to the conclusion of a game before taking Fireball shots and making good on their bet to give the supporter of the losing team (Halkias) a lower back tattoo. In a second spot, the duo is seen in a similar scenario, this time with Halkias promising to shave off his eyebrows. The ads were created internally alongside Jumpsuit Agency, which handled production, VFX and sound.

The ads began running in August and will air during the biggest Big 10 and Notre Dame college football games on NBC, per release details, including pre-game Saturday Fire hype segments and pre-game and in-game spots. Alignment with the NFL season will begin with the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers game, a Peacock-exclusive match-up which is being hosted in Brazil. Involvement in that game will include pre-game and in-game spots in addition to Fireball serving as the exclusive sponsor of the second quarter.

Throughout the rest of the season, Fireball’s creative will run adjacent to all Sunday Night Football games on Peacock. Additionally, the creative will air across a variety of streaming ESPN properties, on YouTube and across Meta.

Other marketers beyond Fireball have sought to tap into football hype. For instance, State Farm this week unveiled a new campaign timed to the kickoff of the NFL season that promotes the company’s bundling capabilities and Personal Price Plan alongside talent like Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes. Also this week, Buffalo Wild Wings launched a new campaign that pairs its CGI buffalo mascot with former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.