The Week in Consumer Packaged Goods: August 30, 2024 edition

Welcome to The Week in Consumer Packaged Goods, a weekly roundup for marketers from Quad Insights that covers the latest must-know news surrounding the CPG space.

Pepsi just announced a partnership with singer Kelly Rowland on its Local Eats Better With Pepsi program. Designed to “turn local restaurant regulars into hometown celebrities,” the program gives Pepsi fans the chance to be featured in a Pepsi ad — along with their favorite local restaurant — and to have their favorite dish renamed in their honor, per a PepsiCo statement. Patrons can nominate their favorite eatery at PepsiLocalEats.com through Oct. 31. Pepsi is launching the program at Rowland’s favorite hometown restaurant, Houston This Is It Soul Food.

Previously: “Pepsi rolls out brand refresh worldwide with giant digital installations,” from the March 8 edition of this column.

Other CPG activations and partnerships:

• “Jack Link’s Created Bold ‘Flavor Filters’ for Gen Z Job Seekers” (Trend Hunters)
• “Mountain Dew Is Offering Free Drinks To Anyone In The MST” (Bleeding Cool)
• “Pillsbury teams up with Donna Kelce to promote return of Bake-Off Contest” (Bake Magazine)
• “Dove and Tennis Athlete Emma Navarro Team Up” (Retail Wire)

Health-Ade just announced the addition of a new flavor, peach, to its prebiotic soda line SunSip. The new flavor is naturally sweetened with peach puree, monk fruit and organic cane sugar. With agave inulin fiber as well as select vitamins and minerals, the new flavor, like other SunSip varieties, is designed to support gut health. (Until midnight on Sept. 3, Health-Ade is giving consumers 25% off a one-time purchase of SunSip’s new peach flavor at sunsip.com with the code PEACH25.)

Previously: “Health-Ade debuts new prebiotic soda with benefits,” from the February 9 edition of this column.

Other notable CPG product launches:

• “Reese’s Debuts an ‘Ooey-Gooey’ New Product — Here’s What to Know” (Food & Wine)
• “MegaFood unveils Superfood Mushroom line” (Drug Store News)
• “Bush’s Beans heats up with Mike’s Hot Honey” (Food Business News)
• “Hello Kitty Strawberry Shortbread-Flavored Goldfish Are Back For A Limited Time” (FoodBeast)
• “Welch’s welcomes new zero sugar juice line with campaign” (Beverage Industry Magazine)
• “Grateful Dead rolling out new vintage of Gnarly Head wines in September” (KSHE 95)
• “Ferrero Unveils its 31 Days of Halloween Countdown Calendar” (Trend Hunter)
• “Tabasco’s First-Ever Mexican-Style Hot Sauce Is About to Level Up Your Favorite Breakfast Burrito” (Food & Wine)
• “Muscle Milk rolls out fall-inspired s’mores flavor” (Drug Store News)

“You can’t say you’ve been to the U.S. Open without having a Honey Deuce. Social media has really been a big part of it. People really want to share their experience, just like if you’re at a Taylor Swift concert and you share the bracelets… At the U.S. Open, there’s no way to really showcase that experience you’re having without sharing your greatest Honey Deuce images.”

—Aleco Azqueta, Grey Goose’s VP of Marketing for North America, in an interview with Marketing Brew’s Alyssa Meyers. The official vodka of the U.S. Open for nearly two decades, Grey Goose is the key ingredient in the Honey Deuce cocktail, which also includes lemonade and raspberry liquor, plus a garnish of three scoops of honeydew melon meant to resemble tennis balls.

Ahead of the NFL’s regular season kickoff on Sept. 5, Snickers — the Official Chocolate Sponsor of the NFL — is releasing limited-edition SatisFORTUNES kits to help fans predict their “favorite team’s fortune… one magical Snickers bite at a time,” per a Mars statement. Snickers created the kits in collaboration with 21 NFL teams and Snickers’ “chocomancer” (defined as a “chocolate fortune teller”) Jenifer Billock. Representatives from each team took bites of Snickers, all of which were then “read” by Billock, who deciphered their “unique traits… to see into the future of the upcoming season,” resulting in the SatisFORTUNES Bite Guide. Snickers released a limited supply of SatisFORTUNES kits this week, each containing five of the 21 limited-edition team Snickers bars, as well as the Bite Guide to help fans decipher their own bites. Limited supplies for each team are available for purchase at snickers.com/satisfortunes, with proceeds going to the NFL Foundation.

Previously: “Snickers launches new campaign calling out airplane passengers’ ‘out-of-sorts’ behavior,” from the April 26 edition of this column.

More football-focused promotions:

• “Celsius centers campaign on college football to further Gen Z marketing” (Marketing Dive)
• “Dos Equis and Drew Brees Challenge Fans to ‘Go For Dos’ with a Million Free Beers” (stupidDope)
• “Kelce brothers tackle cereal aisle with General Mills’ new ‘Kelce Mix’” (The Media Leader)
• “Comedian Shane Gillis plays class clown in Bud Light’s college football ad series” (The Drum)