Dive Brief:
- Babe Wine has teamed up with Ryan Porter’s Candier brand to introduce three stadium-scented candles: Hashtag Field Goals, Jockstrap and $18 Nachos, the wine brand said in an email to Marketing Dive.
- As their names imply, the Jockstrap is inspired by players’ locker room scent, $18 Nachos is reminiscent of overpriced nachos sold during live sporting events and Hashtag Field Goals candle features a hint of turf, according to the company statement. Customers can purchase candles individually for $29 or bundle them together for $69.
- The AB InBev brand partnered with the female-focused accessory maker to re-create the feeling of attending in-person sporting events now that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted in-person attendance, per the company statement.
Dive Insight:
Babe’s partnership with Ryan Porter hopes to re-create the game-day smells for sports fans who miss the smell of “freshly cut turf” — among other things — per the company announcement. With the coronavirus pandemic keeping sports fans out of the stadium, other brands, like Pepsi, have tried to replicate sporting events for remote viewers.
“Babe Wine is about drinking what you want, when you want — especially in 2020,” Chelsea Phillips, general manager at Babe Wine, said in a statement. “As football season kicks off without fans in the stands, we saw an opportunity to enhance the at-home game day experience through some pretty unique scents that’ll make you feel like you’re really there.”
Babe, which has a customer base of millennial women, teamed with an accessory company that says it makes products with a “girl boss” aesthetic for this offbeat product launch. The company’s scented candles come after similar products from brands including Dunkin’, KFC and McDonald’s, that introduced candle lines with hints of coffee, chicken and cheeseburgers, respectively.
After being completely acquired by AB InBev last year, Babe Wine was named the official wine sponsor of the NFL. The brand this summer worked with women-first dating app Bumble on a social media campaign that covered the moving costs of people stuck living with an ex during the coronavirus pandemic. The candle effort has a similarly sarcastic approach to the effects of the pandemic and comes after consumers tired of the sameness of coronavirus-related ads.
Source: Babe Wine creates candles with jockstrap, nacho and grass scents for NFL kickoff
