Why This Canadian Meat Brand Used a 100-Frame Instagram Story to Celebrate Its Footlong Wiener

In North America, undoubtedly, the association between baseball games and hot dogs is iconic. You’re in the stadium, soaking up the sun, you get your pillowy, doughy, white bread bun, that iconic sausage or wiener, and then maybe a sauce or two of your choice. Simple, tried and true, and something everyone ought to experience at least once in their life. 

But, is this necessarily something you want to do every time you watch a game? Well, that’s a different question. Maybe you’re picky about the brand of hot dog. Maybe eating the same old food option over and over is getting a little boring. Or maybe you’re watching from home, and you literally can’t get a ballpark wiener to enjoy! 

Whatever the case may be, despite such a strong link, selling hot dogs in association to baseball isn’t always as easy as it looks. And it’s for this reason that when push comes to shove, great marketing is needed - something recently demonstrated by Schneiders, the official hot dog of Canada’s only MLB franchise, the Toronto Blue Jays. 

To set the stage, the brand has had an ongoing relationship with the team for over a decade. This has meant that they’ve been together through thick and thin, including recent renovations of the team’s stadium, the Rogers Centre. As part of this, upon completion, a new fan area called ‘The Porch’ was announced, which focused on hot dogs, hot dog recipes, and in general, all things ballpark hot dog culture.

And leading the charge in 2023 was the annual resurgence of the footlong hot dog. Perhaps the most novel of the stadium hot dog options - literally not being available elsewhere - it represented both the greatest aspects of enjoying a tasty treat at the game, but also, the fact one would only ever purchase it when out of the house. 

Therein was the marketing problem. If Schneiders was to make it available to anyone, they’d have to compete in a heavily saturated sphere, and not only with meat varieties, but against the ever-rising popularity of vegetarian options. Moreover, what would convince people to keep buying it once they’d had it a few times? After all, if you make something too accessible, the hype and incentive to purchase eventually wears off. 

Enter FUSE Create, ready to deliver an effective creative solution that would keep people talking about and purchasing the footlongs for months to come. The answer? A 100-frame Instagram story (the maximum length an average user can go) dedicated entirely to the monstrous offering. 

“We wanted to express that there was too much quantity of hot dog to contain in a single frame,” says Jacquie Kostuk, director, creative strategy at FUSE. “A 12-inch hot dog is not something you've traditionally seen on a grocery store shelf, so that gave us permission to play with scale online. We also knew that within Instagram, something that had never been done by a brand before, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

Expanding on this, she notes it was critical this creative speak to the core consumer base - many of whom love quality ingredients and products - as well as the barbecue aficionados in search of new novelty grilling options, and, of course, baseball fans. As such, over the course of the story, frames featured tailored copy intended to resonate specifically with each of these demographics. 

“We had copy referencing Schneiders’ history, cool facts about hot dogs, and awesome baseball trivia, including  the lyrics to 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame',” says Emily Farrugia, creative strategist at FUSE. “We also added interactive elements like polls and trivia stickers to keep the audience’s attention, because 100 frames is a lot of scrolling. After all, you might tap through 20 frames, but 100 is a bit of a large ask.”

So, how does one physically execute something like this? According to Jacquie and Emily, the answer is rooted in a combination of great strategy… and a really, really big artboard. 

“The visual itself wasn't too too hard, because we had this isolated photograph of the footlong wiener - beautifully shot, beautifully edited, very high resolution - and then we basically just zoomed in so you'd have the little tips at each end, and then the frames in the middle, comprising a massive, massive, massive Photoshop document,” says Emily. “After that, we just remixed them in interesting ways, ensuring significant thematic changes every three to five swipes. This got people to pay attention, versus just mindlessly scrolling (although just doing that is part of the fun).”

Jacquie continues, noting that what might not be as apparent in this seemingly simple execution is the strategic planning which drove the whole thing. 

“For planning, on an annual basis, we look at a brand's overall objectives and work with them to establish what social can actually help support,” she says. “From there, we determine - within an editorial calendar structure - 'are you going to be more of a moment-marketing brand, or a true, always-on, relationship-building brand?'.”

In this case, Schneiders was all about building a toolbox of strong visual assets, enabling batch-created content of the highest calibre and, in Jacquie’s own words, “beautiful imagery that drives a lived-in, authentic feel.”

But more than this, the FUSE strategy team was also forced to contend with limiting factors such as budget, and the need to make the work appealing to those both in attendance, and those anywhere else across the country. 

“When looking at the budget, we really had to contemplate what the focus was ultimately going to be,” explains Jacquie. “Of course, we thought it was a cool and innovative idea that would resonate well, but social listening played a big role in informing this decision. By seeing how consumers are actively talking about you (or not), you can really inform the structure you build from, because if there is an audience already talking about a specific subject, tapping into them through conversation, conquesting, or even targeting your smaller, more nimble media budget and content against it can help make the work punch above its weight.”

Regarding the subject of mass appeal, critical in selling the wiener meaningfully was aligning the launch of campaign with the Jays’ home opener - a time when people would already be talking about Schneiders in relation to baseball - but also just ensuring that it was clear that the footlong was available anywhere, allowing people to clearly understand that game day could also happen in any place. 

“This campaign came with regional targeting, meaning that even if you lived in Halifax, you wouldn't miss out on the experience Greater Toronto Area people were getting,” Emily notes. “Creatively, we embraced that sort of home and away vibe - a great situation in sports you can liken the content to.”

Brand tone was also of the utmost importance in this regard. However, once again, the opportunity to revolve the creative around a sports-based theme proved ideal, allowing the team at FUSE to have some fun and take Schneiders in a unique direction. “If there’s any kind of partnership, we’re always thinking about how to reflect that,” Jacquie says. “So, in the case of the Blue Jays, we use the baseball tone, meaning they get to have a little more fun. Regular Schneiders never uses emojis. But here, they're allowed to have slang and truncation, reflecting how a Blue Jays fan acts at a game.”

However, she adds that this was also where the biggest challenge of the project lay. “Managing multiple stakeholders is hard. Not only did this have to be in Schneiders’ tone of voice, but there is a second partner that needs to also agree to everything and feel comfortable with what you're outputting. And, the more stakeholders involved, the more time it takes. So, for uploading 100 story frames, that becomes a challenge.”

But that’s just how it is. Success doesn’t appear out of thin air. Platform tech specs evolve, formats change, and overcoming that just requires time, effort and patience - a big takeaway that Jacquie has left the project with. 

“A long time ago, I remember googling 'can you do this to hack YouTube', but you couldn’t then, and you can’t now,” she says. “You just have to adapt and learn. For example, I remember on Facebook years ago, there was a glitch that allowed you to upload a story that was gigantic. The scroll through would take five minutes if people did the full pixel length. And those who took advantage of it got noticed. So, if you're playing with a familiar format, there's always an opportunity to break through by just thinking about how you use it a little bit differently.”

Similarly, Emily reflects this sentiment, but adds that the agency’s decision to plan everything to the letter was the real hero behind this project. “Whether that was making sure the work was ready for when the wieners were going to the store, or checking production supply lines, or that everything was aligned with the Schneiders-Jays partnership, the importance of having a clear schedule (and wiggle room) was vital - even for something as seemingly simple as an Instagram story,” she says. 

So, this all begs the question of how the campaign actually performed. While it’s still early days, the tongue in cheek tone of the campaign proved to be a big hit with consumers, both in the stadium and out. An 8,800 increase in impressions was achieved compared to the brand’s average Instagram stories, single frames were earning up to 880,000 impressions, and the reach goal was beaten by 106%. Moreover, there was a 500% increase in the number of accounts engaged (compared to average Schneiders stories), an 81% increase in mentions compared to the previous month, and compared to the same time last year, a 3000% increase in mentions within social. 

“People were huge fans of it,” Jacquie says. “We were able to get record sale numbers due to the big hot dogs on the shelf - in fact, we couldn’t stop selling out!”

This isn’t an exaggeration. Specifically within the Rogers Centre, pre-footlong, the record number of hot dogs eaten in one night was 50,000. Following the release of the new programming, the record was not broken just once, but three times across the course of the summer, with the most recent record being 76,000 in the month of August… about 1.7 hot dogs per person in the venue. “We know they're big in baseball, but Toronto seems to have a special relationship with it,” she notes. 

Wrapping up, both Jacquie and Emily reflect on their delight at having done this campaign, and the fact that it was a really fun experience through and through. “I really like being able to see Schneiders have fun,” Emily notes. “Breaking out from our usual tone of voice and pushing the brand to get out there and experiment, it was really great!”

Jacquie adds, “I've wanted to do a 100 frame story for two years, so, this was a personal crowning achievement.”

And, as for the hot dogs themselves, while Emily has yet to try one, Jacquie is quick to confirm that they are delicious. “I’ve had many! Fortunately, on shoots, we sometimes get to try the product first. So, I took home a number of packs… but be sure to buy special buns, otherwise you’ll get three inches of overhang on both sides!”