Buffalo Wild Wings has scored a touchdown with its latest “Built for Football” campaign, featuring recently retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce.
Created by Anomaly, the campaign taps into the emotional journey of an athlete transitioning from the field to everyday life, featuring Kelce in a playful yet heartwarming narrative alongside Hank, the brand’s charismatic CGI buffalo mascot.
The campaign positions Buffalo Wild Wings as the ultimate destination for football enthusiasts.
Here’s what iSpot’s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the campaign.
The Details:
Among NFL Fans (very/somewhat interested):
- Among NFL fans, Kelce and Hank dominated the viewing experience considerably in both new Buffalo Wild Wings ads, with each earning strong breakthrough (Attention and Likeability) and Relevance compared to the average ad within this audience:
- “Comeback” earned a positive audience across age/gender among NFL fans while the “Becoming Brothers” :15 struggled with females 21-35:
- Still, the :15 “Becoming Brothers” drove above-norm purchase/visit intent within BWW’s key audience target, with 66% of NFL fans professing being more/much more likely to visit.
- This is likely due to a less character/football-focused storyline in that the food and drink were featured earlier and more directly in the narrative and visuals.
- Still, the :15 “Becoming Brothers” drove above-norm purchase/visit intent within BWW’s key audience target, with 66% of NFL fans professing being more/much more likely to visit.
- In NFL Fan viewer verbatim responses to the two new BWW ads, the predominance of ‘football’ is far smaller for the :15 creative, and humor came through more strongly:
- Comments from NFL Fans on “Hank and Jason Kelce Becoming Brothers” reflect appreciation of the clever brother joke and the early wing sightings, seemingly keeping the focus on the brand’s offerings over the characters a bit more successfully.
NFL Fans on “Hank and Jason Kelce Becoming Brothers” :15
“It was creative, though I paid more attention to the product, as opposed to the characters and dialogue. The product was what was shown first, and as someone who absolutely loves chicken wings, that’s all I focused on.”
Male 36-49
“Love the ad. The company is known for great ads and I love the buffalo character and what they do with him every year. Adding Jason was a great addition.”
Female 21-35
“I love that Jason Kelce is in it and thinks his brother is too busy for him these days. That’s funny because it’s true. Love the Buffalo with wings.”
Female 36-49
“I love wings and I love Buffalo Wild Wings, they taste good and the hot wings are really great. But this ad just makes me hungry.”
Male 21-35
“I loved the initial image of the wings. The rest of the ad was clever and used popular sports figures to promote the brand.”
Female 50+
“Very funny joke and I have been a fan of this brand for a while. These newer commercials have been pretty good.”
Male 21-35
- Our iSpot media measurement reports an appropriate favoring of BWW’s :15 “Becoming Brothers” on both linear and streaming in the two weeks ending 9/9/24:
- On streaming, the spot represented 57% of all casual dining Impressions over this period, while on linear, the same ad comprised 58% of brand Impressions.
- Of the 400 NFL ads tested from 9/1/23 – 8/31/24 (excluding network ads), the average ad featuring NFL content performed 19% higher among NFL fans than within the overall gen pop audience:
- “Jason Kelce is Making His Football Comeback” tracked just below this norm, with an overall 16% higher resonance among league fans.
- The stronger product focus in “Hank and Jason Kelce Becoming Brothers” led to a smaller differential in the ad’s resonance between fans vs gen pop viewers. This product centricity points to higher sales potential/intent (as seen above).
- Higher and earlier interest among gen pop viewers with the :15 is also reflected in second-by-second trace results.
- “Jason Kelce is Making His Football Comeback” tracked just below this norm, with an overall 16% higher resonance among league fans.
- In general, over the past year ads featuring NFL content drove notably stronger intent among NFL Fans vs. gen pop viewers by an average of +13 pts, justifying spending in relevant NFL programming when investing in NFL-specific content:
Ineffective creative, even if delivered to the right audience, results in missed opportunity and performance shortfalls. Great creative delivered poorly also results in failed campaigns.
Schedule a demo to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve—and outperform—campaign objectives.
Creative Agency: Anomaly