Cheez-It Bowl and Pop-Tart Bowl: A Winning Play for Fans and Branding
The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl and the Pop-Tart Bowl had lots of spectacle, including a few custom lapel pins to pump up the crowd!
The college football seasons are full of high-stakes games, roaring crowds, and unforgettable moments.
However, there are no spectacles quite like two headline games played in Orlando, Florida each year: The Cheez-It Citrus Bowl and the Pop-Tart Bowl! For fans at these games, festivities start long before the kickoff and continue long after the final whistle. What really makes these two events so special is how they have become immersive experiences that blend sports, marketing, and fan engagement in such an innovative way.
Turning Football into a Snack-Fueled Extravaganza
As a fan favorite, the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl has only gotten more creative over the years. There are Cheez-It-themed sidelines, a Cheez-It mascot running on the field and among the crowd, Cheez-It hats, shirts, and flags!
It’s a similar story with the Pop-Tart Bowl, which takes the same sweet and creative approach to captivate fans with playful marketing and unique branding. Multiple Pop-Tart mascots took the field in their signature tin-foil wrapping before tearing it away to reveal a fan-favorite flavor, while others popped out of enormous toasters on the field in front of a roaring crowd.
For both of these events, fans get to enjoy the amusing spectacle of all the on-field and off-field shenanigans orchestrated by Cheez-It and Pop-Tart in the midst of a classic college football competition. And if they’re lucky, they might get a small keepsake to bring home!
Among all the giveaways and interactive snack stations were some custom lapel pin designs with the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl logo and the Pop-Tart Bowl logo. Players, commentators, sideline reporters, and fans all had a chance to put on one of these little logo pins. While small, these pins played a big part in turning the stadiums into branded wonderlands, ensuring that everyone in the packed stadiums felt like a part of the action!
Custom Lapel Pins: Tiny Collectibles With Big Impacts
When it comes to creating lapel pins for your brand, sometimes the best approach is a pure recreation of your logo. That was the case for both the Cheez-It Bowl and the Pop-Tart Bowl. The same logo seen on the field is what we used to create the custom pins for each event.
The Cheez-It Bowl pins were created using high polish gold metal to give the cheesy goodness a little extra shine! The Pop-Tart Bowl pins have high polish black nickel plating, which gives off a shimmer reminiscent of the classic tin foil wrapping that covers every pop-tart fresh out of the box!
Custom pins like these give event organizers the ability to bridge the gap between fans and brands. They’re affordable, versatile, and easy to design, making them an ideal choice for event memorabilia. Especially when used for annual events like the Cheez-It Bowl and Pop-Tart Bowl, the pins quickly become sought after collectibles among fans looking to grab updated designs from year to year.
When the design is just right, the pins serve as more than just keepsakes. They can be powerful branding tools, offering fans a way to take home a piece of the event while promoting the brand long after the game has ended. Attendees were spotted wearing these pins on jackets, hats, and backpacks on the way out of the stadium, turning each pin in a walking advertisement for the event.
Score Big With Custom Branding
The Cheez-It Bowl and Pop-Tart Bowl are perfect examples of how brands can leverage events to create unforgettable experiences. By integrating their identities into every aspect of the games and offering unique memorabilia like custom lapel pins, they’ve set a high standard for fan engagement and branding. For fans, the bowls are more than just games - they’re an experience to savor. And for marketers, they’re a case study in how creative activations and thoughtful merchandise can turn an event into a lasting legacy.
If you need custom pins for an upcoming event, we’ve got you covered! Send us your logo, and we’ll create a free design for you!
