Global Media Network of the Year:
Carat
Finalist
Creativity In PR
Best Use of Sponsorship
| Entrant: | The Kitchen North America, Chicago |
| Brand: | Kraft Heinz |
| Title: | "Heir Richie x March Madness" |
| Corporate Name of Client: | Kraft Heinz |
| Client Company: | Kraft Heinz, Chicago |
| Chief Marketing Officer: | Todd Kaplan |
| Client Company Vice President Marketing and Strategy - Easy Ready Meals: | Matt Carpenter |
| Client Marketing Director: | Casey Turro |
| Client Senior Brand Manager: | Jackie Britva |
| Client Company Brand Manager, Marketing: | Jeff Church |
| Client Company Analyst, Communications: | Sabrina Leon |
| Client Company Director of Public Relations: | Jenna Thornton |
| Client Company Manager, North America Media Relations and Brand PR: | Ali Lieberman |
| Client Company Director,Media - Connections Strategy and Investment: | Aliza Goldberg |
| Media Company: | Carat, Chicago |
| PR Company: | Alison Brod Marketing Communications, New York |
| In-House Company: | The Kitchen North America, Chicago |
| Agency President: | Tom Evans |
| Agency Executive Creative Director: | Simon Au |
| Agency Creative Director: | Damon Crate |
| Agency Copywriters: | Loraya Hrynkiw/Adam Vanderkolff |
| Agency Art Director: | Amber Osmond |
| Agency Head of Production: | Julie Benevides |
| Agency Motion Designer: | Dan Corrigan |
| Agency Social Media Managers: | Hillary Kaplan/Jessica Augurusa |
| Agency Agency Creative Content Lead: | Bayly Shelley |
| Agency Agency Content Creator: | Sam Bird |
| Agency Account Team: | Madelaine Violi |
| Agency Agency Head of Accounts: | Karin Carlisle |
| Agency Account Director: | Jennifer Feldman |
| Agency Agency Head of Strategy: | Kathleen Bokar |
| Agency Agency Senior Strategist: | Ben Percifield |
Cultural Context:
Major players like Nike, Gatorade, and Adidas spend millions on official deals with top athletes and tournament rights. But college sports fandom thrives on authenticity, underdog stories, and unexpected moments.
Ore-Ida, the inventor of the Tater Tot, hadn’t been part of that cultural conversation for years. To win in this environment, the brand needed more than media—it needed to earn its way in with cultural credibility. And when BYU star Richie Saunders casually revealed that his great-grandfather founded Ore-Ida, the opportunity for a PR-driven, culturally earned sponsorship practically wrote itself.
The brand had lost ground with younger consumers, many of whom didn’t even know Ore-Ida invented the Tater Tot. With limited spend and no tournament rights, Ore-Ida had to find an unconventional path into the March Madness conversation.
The question: How do you transform a passing comment from a college athlete into a nationally relevant, news-making moment—without a formal sponsorship?
Within 48 hours of Richie Saunders revealing his connection to Ore-Ida, we signed him to an NIL deal and rebranded him as Heir Richie—the rightful face of the Tater Tot legacy. But instead of buying our way in, we earned our way into fan culture and the media cycle.
We activated a PR-first campaign that treated the sponsorship like a cultural event:
- Introduced the “Tot Clock” (free Tater Tots after every BYU win).
- Rebranded Ore-Ida as “Ore-Richie” during the tournament.
- Released custom “Heir Richie” merch and packaging—spoofing iconic athlete memorabilia.
- Brought in Napoleon Dynamite courtside as an Easter egg for Tater Tot fans.
- Used real-time social content to respond to every BYU moment, turning us into a fan-fueled media engine.
No official rights. No traditional sponsorship. Just an earned-first idea that exploded across news, sports, and social platforms.
- 3B+ earned media impressions
- 1,000+ placements including The New York Times, People, USA Today, Barstool Sports
- Coverage on every major sports broadcast (ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, ABC)
- 27% sales lift in Utah, with Tater Tots selling out in multiple regions
- 10,000%+ increase in brand mentions
- 21,700% higher engagement rate than X (formerly Twitter) platform average
- More engagement than all official March Madness sponsors combined, at just 0.04% of their spend
We turned a spontaneous athlete connection into a culturally driven, PR-powered sponsorship moment—proving that the best partnerships don’t have to be bought. They just have to be real.