Design Sprint | Product Innovation | Brand Activation
w/ The Martin Agency
The quick pitch:
Buffalo Wild Wings is the place to turn up for every sports game, but when it comes to the Olympics—the ultimate ‘game’ that stretches late into the night for U.S. viewers—the wings-and-beer bar is practically putting sports fans to bed.
To fight the food coma, we created Wired Wing Sauce: limited-edition OG Buffalo sauce infused with caffeine.
What I did:
Whiteboarded and abandoned 50+ ideas in <24 hours.
Identified and solved a problem that Buffalo Wild Wings didn’t even know it had.
Conducted a test-kitchen focus group with six tired but hungry dudes.
Artifacts: brief, focus group discussion guide, communications framework, pitch deck.
The Brief
Olympians train for years to win big at the Games.
We got four days.
In a 4-day sprint between strategy and creative, we answered Buffalo Wild Wings’ biggest question in four years: what makes the Olympic Games “legendary” and how can we bring it to life for the bar’s biggest sports fanatics?
Oh, and don’t mention the Olympics in our work. At all.
Background
What makes an Olympian legendary? Endurance.
Olympic glory isn’t possible without the grit of getting there: long hours training, every day, for years on end. Pushing past your limits. And then coming back 4 years later to do it all over again—all for love of the game.
Consumer Truth
Endurance is also the ultimate test of a sports fan’s loyalty.
Win or lose, rain or shine, day or night—the expectation is that you stick around for your team.
Cultural Tension
But the 2021 Olympic schedule is testing that loyalty…
With the 2021 Games set in Tokyo, U.S. viewers will need to tune in late into the evening—7 p.m. to 7 a.m. EST—to catch every nail-biting win and cheer on their team in real time.
Brand Tension
…And Buffalo Wild Wings’ game-day diet is putting sports fans to bed.
It’s not the amount of food that triggers a food coma—it’s the ingredients.
Simply put, wings + beer = food coma.
Opportunity
Let’s help U.S. sports fans stay loyal by writing the real winning recipe.
The most legendary athletes, and the most devoted fans, push past “I’m tired” out of love for the game and loyalty to the team. Let’s give the sports fans at Buffalo Wild Wings the fuel to do the same.
The Idea
Buffalo Wired Wing Sauce
With 16+ flavors already in rotation, BDubs’ secret sauce is exactly that: sauce. So we innovated on the sports bar’s biggest strength, introducing limited-edition OG Buffalo sauce infused with caffeine to keep you focused on the game.
How do you make a caffeine-dream a reality? By testing it.
Launch Campaign
Stay up, there’s sports!
From March Madness to the Super Bowl, the biggest sports events of the year are also the longest. To keep the spirit up, we’ll introduce Wired Wings as a staple snack for the sports events that require super-human stamina, like through college gameday darty* delivery buses.
Radio
In-bar Posters and OOH Flyers
Gameday Darty Delivery Bus
Want more?
Fun fact: Chugging a bottle of “Glory Shakes” sauce will give you the same buzz as a Starbucks Americano. Check out my test kitchen takeaways or our original client pitch deck.
My team:
Nick Garfield (CW)
Alec Plourde (AD)
Stephen Pisano (AD)
Tory Nagel (Co-strategist)
Alisha Taylor (Brand Manager)
My part:
Project/creative brief
Client pitch
Communications framework
Deck narrative
Focus group discussion guide
Product prototype
In-depth interviews
Brand audit
Cultural deep dive