CPG MarketingWilliams Foods
Back-to-School Sweepstakes
22,043entries on $4K
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CPG MarketingCampaign DesignPaid SocialConsumer Data
Case Study — Williams Foods · 2021
The Campaign That Made CPG Growth Inevitable.
The first campaign. The one that proved everything. 6,020 entries on a $1,500 ad budget. $0.16 CPC. The proof-of-concept that launched an entire campaign series.
0
Total Entries
on $1,500 budget
$0
Cost Per Click
vs $0.28 industry avg
0
New Page Likes
Facebook growth
0
Rounds Played
bracket mechanic
The Brief
NFL Season. Williams Seasonings. Let's Make It a Thing.
This was the origin. Before the 22,000-entry back-to-school campaign. Before the 13,000-entry March Madness trading card collection. Before Beast had a thick CPG case study to point at — this was the campaign that started it all.
Williams Foods came to Beast with a modest budget and a clear opportunity: NFL season is the biggest food moment of the year. Tailgating, game day spreads, chili cook-offs, wing nights — Williams seasonings belong in every single one of those moments. The question was how to connect the brand to the cultural energy of the NFL in a way that felt authentic and drove real consumer engagement.
The Constraint
A $1,500 total ad budget. For the Beast team, this wasn't a limitation — it was a challenge to prove that creative mechanics could do what raw ad spend alone couldn't. The Williams Bowl would live or die on the strength of the concept, not the size of the media buy.
Campaign Creative
Built for the Bracket. Designed to Drive Votes.
Every round of the Williams Bowl needed creative that made fans feel the stakes. Beast designed the campaign around the NFL playoff energy — stadium atmosphere, bold typography, and a prize stack that escalated week over week. The creative made it easy to understand, impossible to ignore, and worth sharing.
The Idea
16 Seasonings Enter. One Champion Emerges.
1
The Concept: Williams Bowl
Beast designed the Williams Bowl as a four-round bracket tournament modeled directly on the NFL playoff structure. The 16 Williams seasoning products were seeded as "teams" and fans voted on head-to-head matchups each week — advancing their favorites through the bracket toward the Williams Bowl championship. Unlike a standard sweepstakes where you enter once and wait, the Williams Bowl gave fans a reason to come back four times.
2
The Bracket
Wildcard Round: OG Chili vs. OG Taco, Tex Mex Chili vs. Brown Gravy, Spaghetti vs. Spicy Wing, Chipotle Chili vs. Sloppy Joe, Meatloaf vs. Country Gravy, Tex Mex Taco vs. White Chicken Chili. Divisional → Championship → Williams Bowl Grand Prize. Final matchup: OG Chili vs. Tex Mex Taco. The people spoke.
3
The Prize Structure
Round-specific prizes escalated with the stakes. Wildcard: $25 Amazon gift card + Williams football + Williams gift pack. Divisional: $50 gift card + football + NFL hat. Championship: $75 gift card + hat & t-shirt. Williams Bowl Grand Prize: $100 gift card + football + hat, t-shirt, tumbler & jersey from favorite NFL team + Williams gift pack.
4
Distribution Innovation
One of Beast's key strategic decisions was partnering with an external sweepstakes aggregator website — a distribution channel that extended reach beyond Williams' existing social audience and the paid media footprint. This partnership channel became a repeatable playbook element that Beast refined and used again in future Williams and Sun-Bird campaigns.
The Bracket
16 Seasonings Enter. Fans Decide Who Wins.
Every week, Williams fans voted head-to-head matchups — pitting seasonings against each other like playoff seeds. OG Chili vs. Sloppy Joe. Tex Mex Taco vs. Spaghetti. Each vote entered fans to win that round's prize, and advanced their favorite deeper into the bracket. Four rounds. Four chances to win. One Williams Bowl champion.
The Results
$1,500 In. 6,020 New Consumer Records Out.
| Metric | Result | vs Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Total Entries | 6,020 | — |
| Total Ad Budget | $1,500 | — |
| Cost Per Click (CPC) | $0.16 | 43% lower than $0.28 avg |
| New Facebook Page Likes | 872 | — |
| Campaign Duration | 4 weeks | — |
| Rounds Completed | 4 | — |
Round-by-Round Participation
Wildcard (Week 1)
1,919CA, TX, FL, NY, OH
Divisional (Week 2)
1,300TX, FL, CA, NY, OH
Championship (Week 3)
805TX, FL, CA, NY, MO
Williams Bowl (Week 4)
1,996CA, FL, TX, NY, PA
Why This Campaign Matters
At $1,500, the Williams Bowl proved that Beast's creative mechanic approach could generate thousands of consumer records efficiently. The $0.16 CPC — 43% below industry average — showed that the concept itself was doing the work, not just the ad budget. Three months later, the BTS campaign ran on $4,000 and generated 22,043 entries. One year later, Williams All-Stars added 13,660 more with an email click rate 11x the industry average. The Williams Bowl is where that story started.
Campaign Overview
ClientWilliams Foods
CampaignWilliams Bowl — NFL Bracket
YearFall / Winter 2021
Duration4 weeks
Ad Budget$1,500
PlatformsFacebook, Sweepstakes Partner
ServicesStrategy, Creative, Polling Setup, Landing Page, Paid Social
The Williams Campaign Series
Williams Bowl2021
6,020 entriesWilliams BTS2021
22,043 entriesWilliams All-Stars2022
13,660 entriesThe Winners
Real Fans. Real Prizes. Announced Every Round.
Every round, Beast designed and posted custom winner announcement graphics tagging the real fans who voted their way to victory — keeping the community engaged and the next entry feeling urgent.
Wildcard Round
Divisional Round
Championship Round
Grand Prize
Every Great Campaign Series Starts With the First One.
Beast's CPG sweepstakes playbook is proven across multiple campaigns, multiple clients, and multiple years. Ready to run your first — or your best yet?
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