10 Brands Ready For Mardi Gras 2015

Mul­ti­ple local and nation­al brands are tweet­ing from parades and shar­ing con­tent like recipes to get into the Mar­di Gras spir­it.  

Lisa Lacy By Lisa Lacy. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Mar­di Gras is a mar­ket­ing moment many brands fail to cap­i­tal­ize on. Mul­ti­ple brands are look­ing beyond the drunk­en debauch­ery of Bour­bon Street, tweet­ing from parades and shar­ing con­tent like recipes to get into the Mar­di Gras spir­it this year. Here’s how brands are weav­ing them­selves into the cul­ture and sto­ry line of Fat Tues­day.


New Orleans Saints and Pelicans

New Orleans’ pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball and bas­ket­ball teams, respec­tive­ly, have been active­ly push­ing out Mar­di-Gras-themed con­tent.

The Saints, for exam­ple, are tak­ing full advan­tage of their break in the off­sea­son by post­ing Vines from parades, as well as tweets like a Mar­di-Gras-themed GIF from quar­ter­back Drew Brees’ Sports­Cen­ter com­mer­cial and gen­er­al Mar­di Gras cheer from play­ers.

For their part, the Pel­i­cans are tak­ing full advan­tage of their King Cake Baby char­ac­ter. Accord­ing to Randazzo’s Camel­lia City Bak­ery, a king cake is an oval-shaped “cross between a cof­fee cake and French pas­try” that is dec­o­rat­ed in “pur­ple, which sig­ni­fies jus­tice, green, [which is] for faith, and gold, [which is] for pow­er.”

In addi­tion, a tiny plas­tic baby is hid­den inside to sym­bol­ize the Epiphany. And, as tra­di­tion goes, when king cake is served at a par­ty, the guest who finds the baby is dubbed king for a day and is oblig­at­ed to host the next par­ty.

The Pel­i­cans have been tweet­ing to fans with oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet their King Cake Baby in per­son and the team also cre­at­ed a faux Sports­Cen­ter spot fea­tur­ing the King Cake Baby at the Pel­i­cans head office.

Lind­sey Mitchell, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er for the Pel­i­cans and Saints, said the King Cake Baby orig­i­nat­ed as a char­ac­ter that par­tic­i­pat­ed in in-game races, along with a Mar­di Gras jester and king. The King Cake Baby in par­tic­u­lar seemed to res­onate with fans and so the team want­ed to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act more, which is why the Pel­i­cans sched­uled pre-Mar­di-Gras appear­ances.

Fans were able to take pho­tos and self­ies with the King Cake Baby and the Pel­i­cans were able to cre­ate a “chance for peo­ple to real­ly get into the Mar­di Gras spir­it,” Mitchell said.

New Orleans is very proud of things that are very New Orleans,” she said. “I think New Orleans is such a spe­cial mar­ket and it’s such a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to have Mar­di Gras every year. Every­one looks for­ward to it and every­one has their own tra­di­tions. To own a lit­tle Mar­di Gras spir­it in the King Cake Baby enabled us to have a lot of fun with this.”


Abita Brewing Company

The Louisiana-based micro­brew­er is uti­liz­ing Face­book video, as well as Insta­gram and Twit­ter to cap­ture the spir­it of Mar­di Gras and rev­el­ers using its prod­uct along parade routes.

Jor­dan Von Tress, a dig­i­tal strate­gist at adver­tis­ing firm Inno­v­a­tive Adver­tis­ing and who han­dles social media for Abi­ta, said the brand has been film­ing footage at parades over the last two weeks “try­ing to cap­ture what Mar­di Gras is and how Abi­ta plays into it” and post­ing videos on Face­book. Those efforts have also includ­ed reward­ing parade-goers who were drink­ing Abi­ta with Abi­ta swag. In doing so, Von Tress says the brand is try­ing to “cap­ture what Mar­di Gras is and what peo­ple are pack­ing in their cool­ers.”

Abi­ta, which has a Mar­di Gras Bock sea­son­al brew, wants to show­case its New Orleans and Mar­di Gras her­itage as much as pos­si­ble, he said.

New Orleans is syn­ony­mous with Mar­di Gras, as is Abi­ta, which is syn­ony­mous with New Orleans. It’s the local craft beer of choice for many peo­ple and we’re find­ing every­where peo­ple asso­ciate one with the oth­er,” he adds. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the brand also recent­ly fea­tured its Pur­ple Haze brew in a “Fifty Shades of Grey” themed image to cap­i­tal­ize upon movie excite­ment as well. Von Tress says Pur­ple Haze is one of Abita’s most pop­u­lar beers on a nation­al lev­el and the brand “just want­ed to have some fun with it and to cap­ture that audi­ence with the hash­tag.”


Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

Quick ser­vice chain Popeyes, which was found­ed in a New Orleans sub­urb in 1972, has been tweet­ing images of beads, as well as pho­tos from parades with the hash­tag #Find­Y­our­Mardi­Gras, which, per Top­sy, has been used about 80 times in the last month.


Zatarain’s

Cajun-style food com­pa­ny Zatarain’s has also been tweet­ing images from parades, as well as Mar­di-Gras-themed GIFs.

The brand has com­pa­ra­ble con­tent on Face­book, which also includes images of beads and jam­bal­aya. And Zatarain’s has a vir­tu­al parade, the Zataroute on its Face­book page, which invites its 300,000 fans to fol­low along with the king cake baby.


Tabasco

Hot sauce brand Tabas­co, which is also a Louisiana native, is shar­ing Mar­di Gras recipes via Twit­ter to its 25,000 fol­low­ers.


Crystal

Anoth­er Louisiana-based hot sauce, Crys­tal, post­ed an image of staffers from its cor­po­rate office who were ready for Mar­di Gras on Twit­ter and Face­book,


Tulane

The New Orleans-based uni­ver­si­ty has been active on Twit­ter, tweet­ing about alum­ni in parades, as well as stud­ies about Mar­di Gras’ eco­nom­ic impact on the region and tips on where to find king cake, as well as over­all bead eti­quette.

Tulane is so close­ly iden­ti­fied with New Orleans, this is just a nat­ur­al fit for us,” said Mike Streck­er, exec­u­tive direc­tor of pub­lic rela­tions at Tulane. “So many of us fac­ul­ty, staff and stu­dents take part in Mar­di Gras in parades and the march­ing bands march in a lot of parades and a few years back, the pres­i­dent of the board was the king of Car­ni­val.”


Emeril Lagasse

The New-Orleans-based chef and restau­ra­teur is using Twit­ter and Face­book to share recipes with the hash­tag #Emer­ils­Mardi­Gras, which has gen­er­at­ed about 150 tweets in the past week, per Top­sy.

In addi­tion, Emer­il is anoth­er brand that has been tweet­ing from parades.


Jim Beam

Ken­tucky bour­bon brand Jim Beam wants to ensure its 100,000 fol­low­ers asso­ciate it with Bour­bon Street in its Mar­di Gras tweet from Feb­ru­ary 13.


Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods

And gluten-free brand Udi’s has gone as far as cre­at­ing a Pin­ter­est board with “mouth­wa­ter­ing gluten free recipes with a Cajun/Southern twist,” like gluten-free beignets, king cake and red beans and rice, as well as fried green toma­toes and craw­fish etouf­fee.

The board has 55 pins and 30,000 fol­low­ers.

Lisa Lacy

Written by Lisa Lacy

Lisa is a senior features writer for Inked. She also previously covered digital marketing for Incisive Media. Her background includes editorial positions at Dow Jones, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, AOL, Amazon, Hearst, Martha Stewart Living and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

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