Local food, drink companies sales spike during Super Bowl week
The first-ever Super Bowl ad today for Planters peanuts -- indeed the first Super Bowl ad of any kind in a decade for the snack item's owner, Northfield-based Kraft Foods Inc. -- coincides with one of the biggest snacking days of the year.
Kraft's bottom line shows double-digit sales gains annually for frozen pizzas, cheeses and dairy lines during Super Bowl week.
And Kraft isn't alone in piggybacking off the National Football League's biggest game of the year. Chicago area businesses, big and small, put on the blitz.
Deerfield-based Fortune Brands Inc., which makes Jim Beam and other liquors, expects to see sales go 10 percent higher thanks to today's game.
Downers Grove-based Sara Lee Corp. reports sales of its Ball Park Franks plump 31 percent.
Elgin-based John B. Sanfilippo & Son Inc., producer of Fisher nuts, this year joins Miller Brewing in a Super Bowl-related joint marketing agreement for the Chicago-area.
And local delivery pizza restaurants may see business rise 15 to 20 percent, according to David "Big Dave" Ostrander, a pizza industry consultant based in Michigan. Pizza chains could see double that amount, he estimated.
Even local grocery stores expect a buying binge.
"We see a big spike in party-type foods like chips, appetizers and snacks, and specialty trays like vegetable or deli trays," said Dan Wilkinson, president of Strack & Van Til Foods, in a statement. "Of course, we do a high volume of pop and beer for the Super Bowl as well."
Testimonies to the marketing power of Super Bowl ads are the local companies that will advertise during the game but don't benefit from a sales bump.
McDonald's will be airing a Ronald McDonald House Charities commercial, not mentioning its food. And Chicago-based Gatorade doesn't expect to see a sales boost but will feature baseball star Derek Jeter touting its new G2, a low calorie version of Gatorade focused on off-field consumption.
The largest suburban link to the Super Bowl this year will be Planters.
Traditionally seen as a packaged nut product, Planters wants to tackle the much larger salty snack market with the likes of Doritos, which will also have a Super Bowl ad today.
The packaged nut market generates sales of about $3 billion annually, while the salted snack sector racks up $25.7 billion, according to the Washington D.C.-based Snack Food Association, an international association of snack food producers.
Planters representatives say they want people to think of the brand as an everyday snack.
"They (Planters) could see sales rise for the rest of '08 if they do a good job of repositioning their brand," said Gerald Hughes, vice president of Chicago-based retail consulting firm WhittmanHart Consulting.
Like Fisher nuts, Planters penned a joint marketing agreement with a brewer, Anheuser-Busch Cos., the parent of Budweiser.
Besides Planters, Kraft owns other brands expected to see double-digit sales increases due to today's game, including Oscar Mayer hot dogs and bacon, Kraft Singles, Breakstone's Sour Cream, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and frozen pizzas such as California Pizza Kitchen, Tombstone and DiGiorno.
Advertising spots during this year's Super Bowl sold for an average of $2.7 million for a 30-second commercial, according to industry estimates.
An expected 100 million people will be watching the commercials, and Super Bowl Sunday also has an afterlife on the Internet, according to Fran Kelly, president and CEO of US operations for Arnold Worldwide.
Big budget commercials like the Planters ad often get posted on Internet sites and get downloaded for weeks, Kelly said, effectively reaching additional audiences.
"With sites like YouTube and MySpace, Planters could turn their $2.7 million investment into a two-month program," Kelly said.
And that's not peanuts.