Atlanta Braves sponsor and gas station brand RaceTrac is engaging baseball fans through the pandemic through its two-year sponsorship of the team’s home game sprint mascot phenomenon – ‘The Freeze’.
‘The Freeze’ is one of the most popular and best known in-game attractions in US sports: at every Braves home game since 2017 fans have queued up for a chance to race him around the outfield’s warning track. Only one (un)lucky fan is chosen from the stands each game and, despite getting a generous head start, ‘The Freeze’ leaves almost every competitor in his dust.
With his distinctive blue lycra costume and blazing speed, his fan sprint races have become an in-stadium tradition and a social media sensation and have attracted the attention of many US media outlets from Atlanta Magazine to Wired.
It also caught the attention of team partner RaceTrac Petroleum (which owns and operates a chain of gas service stations across the southern USA and which is Georgia’s third largest private company) who sponsored The Freeze two years ago in a move that saw the masked sprint mascot’s blue jumpsuit emblazoned with the RaceTrac logo.
The gas station chain and ad agency R/GA Austin worked together on the new creative to mark this year’s return of the mascot initially through a dedicated @BeatTheFreeze Twitter account and then via videos on RaceTrac and Braves marketing channels.
The petrol station brand leveraged The Freeze’s cultural and sporting cache by bringing him to life at locations throughout the southeast USA through a campaign that resulted in months of planning, multiple shoots, and Freeze merchandise which was scheduled to launch at the beginning of the 2020 MLB season in April.
The strategy was tweaked due to Covid-19 and the team ramped up virtual and social content ramped up during the pandemic lockdown period with additional posts including Freeze reactions, Twitter tags and other organic content that will be released during the delay to the start of the MLB season and continued when games finally got under way.
This included a ‘Freeze Tag’ virtual opportunity for fans to challenge the mascot in the ‘RaceTrac’s Beat The Freeze’ promotion which helped keep Braves fans engaged with ‘The Freeze’ throughout the spring and early summer.
As well as social commentary and comment, and Freeze throwbacks, some quarantined athletes elite even discussed the idea of racing him.
RaceTrac and R/GA then pivoted and bring the excitement of baseball’s ‘The Freeze’ to fans at home via a mobile race experience in a marketing initiative blending mobile gaming with an Instagram filter.
The agency chose to leverage the trend for Instagram filters which were being used and shared at historically high rates during quarantine and blend it with the every expanding second screen sporting trend and pandemic spurt in gaming.
So a branded Instagram filter Freeze sprint challenge and gaming experience were created with RaceTrac at the forefront of the experience.
The agency worked with MBI, Brandware, Vert, Fox Sports South and the Braves on the project and amplified it through August and September via a five-pronged campaign rollout that spanned broadcast, social, influencers, sweepstakes and, when baseball returned, in-stadium activations.
As well as invitations to race the Freeze, the team created a Freeze Filter Sweepstakes rewarding 15 fans who shared their filter videos or photos on social with RaceTrac’s special edition Freeze merchandise. It also collaborated with influencers to stir up excitement and incentivise fans to participate, like Chelsea Freeman who gave away a Freddie Freeman signed baseball!
“From onscreen billboards to pre-game features, we leveraged Braves FSS broadcasts throughout the campaign and even gamified them by placing a cardboard Freeze cutout in the stands and inviting viewers to #FindTheFreeze in a Where’s Waldo-like Twitter activation,” explained said R/GA Strategist Kevin Miner.
“’The Freeze’ also challenged a slew of high-profile social accounts to race, earning engagement from the likes of NFL wide receiver Calvin Ridley to sports business analyst Darren Rovell. He then directed his attention to everyday fans, sending hundreds of individually tailored tweets with the filter link to folks who challenged him in the past.”
Comment:
The Freeze ran a total of 37 times last season in front of a total attendance at those games of 1.37m, but The Freeze is now getting much wider reach on social media.
During lockdown sports fans around the world were searching for sports connections and this approach enabled Braves supporters to engage their passion for the team by engaging with The Freeze on alternative platforms beyond the realms of the stadium itself.
Despite the best efforts of the agency, its partners and RaceTrac Petroleum (Georgia’s third largest private company), our opinion remains that no one will ever be able to replicate what it’s truly like to beat ‘The Freeze’ in front of a packed crowd at Trust Park….because pretty much no one has ever done it.
This initiative shows an inventive approach to engaging sports fans, connected athletes with consumers and reimagining in-game sports entertainment while strengthening RaceTrac’s association with the team.
RaceTrac’s sponsorship of The Freeze mostly reaches the Atlanta market, but the viral and virtual distribution of the character is helping help the chain in its expansion plans to other parts of the country and it recently entered its first new market (Tennessee) in more than 15 years (and plans to open 50 new gas stations in the state by 2023).
But just who is this jet heeled masked mascot we hear you ask?
Activative can unmask The Freeze as Braves grounds crew staffer and former college track star Nigel Talton.
Links:
RaceTrac
https://www.facebook.com/RaceTrac/
https://www.instagram.com/racetrac/
R/GA
https://www.rga.com/offices/austin
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