Oscar Mayer Proposes a New Bacon as a New Currency

September 10, 2012, 7:04 am

By STUART ELLIOTT

Many people, even those who are not New York State residents, have probably heard the lottery slogan, “All it takes is a dollar and a dream.” Now comes an actor, comedian and writer, seeking to make his way across the country in the next two weeks with only a dream and, oh, yes, instead of a dollar, a trailer filled with 3,000 pounds of a new bacon.

The actor, Josh Sankey, will embark this week on a promotion for the Oscar Mayer division of Kraft Foods that is being called the Great American Bacon Barter. The promotion includes a Web site, baconbarter.com; social media like Twitter; and a public relations campaign.

Mr. Sankey's trailer will be filled by Oscar Mayer with a ton and a half of it s new Butcher Thick Cut bacon, which he is to trade for food, fuel, a place to spend the night and anything else he might need during his trip from the New York area to Los Angeles, by way of a route that is to include what Oscar Mayer executives describe as bacon-loving locales like Charleston, W.Va.; Louisville, Ky.; Chicago; and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Mr. Sankey is being asked to barter his way across America because, Oscar Mayer says, he is being sent without cash or credit cards. The idea is to turn him loose with his cache of bacon and see what happens, not unlike the stories about power barterers who start with, say, a paper clip and wind up with a house.

Butcher Thick Cut bacon is being introduced by Oscar Mayer, joining its regular bacon offerings like Oscar Mayer Center Cut. The price of a 22-ounce package of the new variety is about $8.99, compared with about $5 for a 12-ounce package of Center Cut.

The new Oscar Maye r product is intended to capitalize on a national craze for bacon that has spawned a rash of higher-end brands, sold by mail order as well as in supermarkets. The mainstream bacon brands like Oscar Mayer, Hillshire Farms, Hormel and Armour are scrambling to keep up with the newcomers.

“There's this fever for bacon in this country,” said Tom Bick, director for integrated marketing communications and advertising at Oscar Mayer in Madison, Wis.

“How do we tap into that?” he asked. “If we don't do something to put Oscar Mayer in its rightful place, then shame on us.”

Butcher Thick Cut is “massive, awesome bacon,” Mr. Bick said, “the highest-quality bacon we have.”

The new product “is the new gold standard in bacon,” Mr. Bick said, and “we think it's worth its weight in gold” â€" thereby inspiring the cross-country barter binge.

The promotion is an example of how Oscar Mayer and other Kraft divisions to try to reach consum ers in new ways apart from tried-and-true tactics like television commercials.

“We have to think beyond the traditional means we've used,” Mr. Bick said, “shooting a commercial for $500,000 and airing it for $5 million.”

The promotion, by contrast, is costing “a couple hundred thousand dollars,” he added.

The promotion is the brainchild of 360i, the Oscar Mayer digital agency, and the public relations campaign to support it is being handled by Olson. (The creative agency for Butcher Thick Cut is McGarryBowen, which is creating print ads that declare, “It scares other bacon to bits.”)

Mr. Bick, who joined Oscar Mayer a year ago, said he challenged 360i to develop an imaginative way to promote the new bacon in keeping with his mandate “to elevate advertising and marketing for Oscar Mayer.”

Sarah Hofstetter, president at 360i, part of the Dentsu Network division of Dentsu, said, “As we thought about bacon and its popularity, w e thought, ‘What better currency to drive social actions for the brand' ” than the product itself.

“It's less about what wouldn't you do for bacon and more about what would you do for bacon,” she added.

The goal of the promotion is, clearly, to generate engagement, Ms. Hofstetter said, adding: “It's not just one man's journey. He's going to invite America to join him via social media, helping him barter or even putting some challenges in his path.”

Mr. Sankey can be followed during his trip on Twitter, the baconbarter.com Web site and a YouTube channel, youtube.com/BaconBarter.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter by clicking here.