Frank’s RedHot is the unparalleled leader in the hot sauce category in America. It’s become a household name, most commonly praised for its perfect balance of flavor and heat. However, competition has become increasingly stiff over the last few years, forcing Frank’s to constantly remind fans why we deserve to be their first choice when it comes to spicing up any food and occasion.

Frank’s primarily relies on sporting events to drive game day recipes and let our spicy personality shine. However, this year we needed to adapt due to the long list of cancelled and postponed sporting events. The first live event in over 70 days was approaching: The Match. And while Frank’s never participated in golf before, we knew we had to seize the opportunity.

Our objectives for the activation included driving brand love amongst our existing audience, reaching some new audiences, and driving Frank’s sales.

Since NFL stars Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were facing off in The Match, there was only one person who could help Frank’s spice up 2020’s first live (and pretty boring) sporting event for all the fans watching at home — Eli Manning. Peyton’s brother and Brady’s arch-nemesis. So we put him on social media for the first time ever, just to stir up some $#!t and tweet some heat at all the golfers in real time.

Fans were hit hard by Covid-19 and the mundane life it forced them into. While they typically rely on major cultural and sporting events to provide some everyday excitement and entertainment, the pandemic left them with none of it. Needless to say, people became desperate to fill the void left by the lack of any sporting events.

They finally got their wish.... But it was golf. Yawn. And while we knew all eyeballs would be on The Match, there was only so much the press would be able to say about a golf tournament. So we decided to spice things up for our fans and give the press something exciting to talk about. To help guarantee sports press traction, we partnered with former NFL player, Eli Manning.

The activation was a one-day live Twitter event that ran throughout The Match. First, Eli surprised the world with a sudden entry into social media. Immediately there was excitement, intrigue, and impatience as the world waited on bated breath to find out why. Then as soon as the event started,, Eli revealed his true purpose for being on Twitter – joining forces with Frank’s RedHot to spice this thing up with some good-ol’ fashioned trash talk. So he came in hot, tweeting in real-time throughout The Match, spit his best trash-talk, and ignited a social media frenzy.

We gave our fans an outlet to let off some steam as well. We invited them to participate in the activation using #TweetSomeHeat and surprise and delighted the fans with the spiciest tweets, memes, and GIFs of their own (after Eli’s, of course).

#Tweet Some Heat set the internet on fire. With a mere $175K budget, Frank’s drove 465MM impressions and over 250K engagements. We were the #1 talked about brand on Twitter during the event -- making more noise than brands who spent millions on official partnerships -- and the #1 story covered in sports media.

Frank’s was successful in driving brand love amongst new and existing fans; the activation resulted in a 55x increase in daily followers and more than doubled our positive sentiment (2.1x).

Because of Frank’s, Eli Manning gained over 300K followers on Twitter in the first 48 hours of him joining the social platform, kicking off his social media career which continues to thrive today.

In addition, Frank’s outpaced the category in terms of sales throughout the weeks following the event and experienced a +41% jump in unit sales when compared to the same timeframe last year.