Dinner roll brand King’s Hawaiian is extending its trial sponsorship with Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing into a full-season, multiyear deal, following an initial foray into the NASCAR Cup Series in the middle of the 2022 season. The renewal will be announced tomorrow with terms unreleased, aside from noting that the CPG company will continue to serve as a primary partner for the team’s No. 6 Ford driven by Brad Keselowski for multiple races this year, starting with this weekend’s Busch Light Clash at the L.A. Coliseum. The third-generation family-owned brand first trialed the team side of the sport last May when it came on for a couple of races with RFK. It also has sold its products and activated its brand at NASCAR tracks.
Brand CEO Chad Donvito told SBJ in an email that his leadership team decided to renew because “we exceeded all our goals,” which included measuring brand metrics including media value, impressions and engagement. The team -- co-owned by Fenway Sports Group -- did a digital/social content series last season with Keselowski promoting King’s Hawaiian’s “Slider Sunday” marketing initiative. Last year, the brand promoted its pretzel-bun rolls on the side of the car alongside its logo, while renderings for this year’s orange paint scheme show it promoting “Slider Sunday.”
Donvito added that the brand will be activating in fan zones at tracks during the season, and that new twists could include partnering with other RFK sponsors and having Keselowski promote some regional sliders at new tracks. King’s Hawaiian handles its sports marketing strategy in house and has other deals with the Falcons, Red Sox, Dodgers and Yankees -- but it uses a longtime agency partner in Entertainment3Sixty to handle the at-track experiential element. RFK President Steve Newmark told SBJ that this deal is an archetype of what it is trying to pursue to bring major consumer brands back into its fold: “With a trial basis to try to showcase what the NASCAR platform can offer for a handful of races; in this instance, it worked extremely well for a variety of reasons.”
King's Hawaiian x RFK Racing
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