2011 SAMMY Award Winner, Best Social Location-Based Campaign; Finalist, Best Social Creative, R/GA for McCormick Grill Mates Grill Mayor
Agency: R/GA
Brand: McCormick Grill Mates Grill Mayor
Campaign Brief: What’s summer without grilling? To help McCormick Grill Mates position itself as the owner of grill culture, the Grill Mayor campaign turns backyard grills into a destination for fun and flavor. Using FourSquare technology, anyone can check into their grill every time they cook up something delicious, whether for their nightly dinner or their annual blowout BBQ.
Every session counts in the quest to be mayor of your grill. But for the first time ever, Grill Mates lets you become the actual mayor of an actual town: Hunt Valley, Maryland, home of the McCormick headquarters. At the end of the campaign, the grill master with the most check-ins at his or her grill will carry the honorary duty of Hunt Valley mayor for one day only. What other FourSquare mayors can say they actually held a real local position? They’ll also receive a golden spatula, a year’s supply of Grill Mates seasonings and steaks to keep the fun going, and a grilling toolkit with a monogrammed steak brand. Now those are spoils that any griller would be proud to hold.
Before the mayor is even announced, the Grill Mayor campaign keeps things interesting along the journey. We created original badges that anyone can collect during their check-ins, like the Werewolf badge for checking into your grill on the night of a full moon, or the Rare badge, for checking in at exactly 5:32pm. These unique badges make every check-in a special experience and give people even more reason to light up their grills and invite their friends. Every check-in counts as a vote for mayor, and in this campaign, votes turn a simple FourSquare activity into a history-making reality.
With Grill Mayor, McCormick introduces itself to home grillers as an active player in the culture of grilling. Playful and interactive, it leverages two existing behaviors—the proud tradition of backyard cookouts and the social activity happening on FourSquare—to create a unique digital space for people to share their enthusiasm for their favorite summertime pursuit. Through a simple elevation of the everyday, Grill Mates is on the mind of every griller who starts their fire and checks into FourSquare in the process.
By incentivizing grilling, Grill Mayor drives more people to their grill and drives great social sharing. And by turning anyone’s grill into a FourSquare location, McCormick greets people at a hyper-local level, reaching into people’s homes as a starter for summer gatherings. Over the course of the campaign, Grill Mates has taken on over 260,000 fans. The grillers are checking in across the country, inspiring some true loyalty, with the current forerunner for mayor of Hunt Valley checking into his grill over 500 times.
Grill Mayor identifies an opportunity to be a more relevant participant in people’s grilling lives. By connecting a digital activity with a real life activity, McCormick then becomes a powerful part of this summer’s epic cookout story across the country. For any grilling enthusiast toiling dutifully and passionately away in front of the flames of a grill for a perfect piece of steak for two or a bevy of hot dogs to feed a hungry crew of kids at a birthday party, Grill Mayor is another way that McCormick can show their customers that they’re appreciated.
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