Grape-Nuts is tapping history for its revived take on tying a brand and athletics, revealing a plan for the breakfast cereal to pay tribute to and expand its role in the historic adventures it has been involved with for well over a century – from sponsoring Sir Admiral Byrd’s 1933 expedition to Antarctica or powering Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay’s heroic 1953 Mount Everest climb. For the cereal’s 125th anniversary, and to celebrate Women’s History Month, the brand is saluting female explorers actively fundraising on GoFundMe in the hopes of venturing out to Mount Everest and Antarctica in 2022 and 2023 and will donate a total of up to $125,000 to ten female adventurers in need of a financial boost. Between March 15th and March 30th, 2022, Grape-Nuts will review the active GoFundMe campaigns of female adventurers hoping to explore Mount Everest and Antarctica, awarding the donation money sometime between March 31 and April 8. The brand will push adventure even further later this year.

Cynopsis spoke with Lauren Jamnick, Associate Brand Manager, Grape-Nuts, about the brand’s strategy and its history in the legacies of certain adventures.

Jamnick on the overall marketing strategy and how it has evolved: This year is the 125th anniversary of the Grape-Nuts brand, so it felt like a perfect moment to look back and honor its legacy while also looking forward to the future. From the very beginning, Grape-Nuts has had a strong tie to adventure and exploration. The cereal has long been considered a nutritional breakfast staple that supports an active and healthy lifestyle.
The brand sponsored Sir Admiral Byrd’s expedition to Antarctica in 1933 and proudly displayed the expedition maps on the cereal box. In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay fueled themselves with Grape-Nuts on their historic trek to become the first climbers in history to summit Mount Everest. In 2022, we still stand by the nutritional power of Grape-Nuts, but we also recognize that the stereotype of men always leading the charge when it comes to adventure and exploration is so outdated.

On the new initiative: With this new initiative, we’re honoring our history as a brand synonymous with adventure while elevating and recognizing the amazing women who are reaching new heights—sometimes quite literally—in the world of exploration. This month, we’ll be identifying deserving women with active GoFundMe campaigns who are planning to either climb Everest or trek to Antarctica in 2022 or 2023. We’re excited to be able to donate up to $125,000 to help these women reach their goals.
We’re so proud of our brand’s history and the amazing moments we’ve been involved in, but it felt like it was time to expand that legacy to reflect the modern-day truth that ALL people, including women, can not only dream to do amazing things but also achieve them.

On the brand: Grape-Nuts is such a unique and iconic brand, and I was a fan even before I joined Post. The depth of the brand’s ties to exploration was a wonderful surprise to me and became something that my team and I wanted to promote even further. This program and the celebration of our 125th anniversary continues to show me how amazing people are and how limitless the possibilities can be. And as a woman, I’m so proud to support those who don’t let anything stand in their way.

On goals: Our goal is to support explorers of all kinds and while it’s possible that some great content could come out of this, our main purpose in creating this program is to celebrate and support women making huge strides in exploration. That said, we will have some more fun things in store for our 125th anniversary year, so stay tuned!

On the biggest lesson learned from the past two years: The past two years have been challenging for everyone—consumers and brands. We’ve learned to stay nimble, have a Plan B, and then have a Plan 2B when that doesn’t work out. Between the challenges of the pandemic and the widespread supply chain issues that everyone has been dealing with, we’ve been met with our fair share of adversity. But we find that if we stay true to the brand and recognize the challenges that our customers are facing every day, we always find a way to keep moving forward.

PROGRAMMING

GLORY Kickboxing saw one of its biggest events of the year get cut short after a riot broke out in the crowd during Saturday’s GLORY 80 card in Belgium. As a result of the violence, the promotion cancelled the remainder of the event as co-headliner heavyweights Arkadiusz Wrzosek and Badr Hari were competing. “Unfortunately, a group of individuals with bad intentions attended the event last night,” GLORY said in a statement after the event. “They exhibited unsafe behavior during the event. With absolute regard to the safety of the audience and upon the request of the local authorities, GLORY stopped the event. It was the first time that such an incident has ever taken place at a GLORY event, and we would like to report that with today’s knowledge all event attendees are safe and no one was seriously injured. Safety of all participants and attendees has always and will always be GLORY’s utmost priority.”

As we wait for final numbers from the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament, Kentucky’s upset loss to 15 seed Saint Peter’s in the NCAA Tournament, delivered CBS with an average 3.1 rating on Thursday night with the upset averaging 5.46 million viewers, in early Nielsen numbers and leading the pack of games in the window. Overall, the four contests combined for an audience of 10.81 million, up as much as 9% from the equitable block last year.

Meanwhile, the First Four on Tuesday and Wednesday ranked as the best ever, according to Nielsen, with both days setting viewership records. Gross viewership for the pair of doubleheaders totaled 6/9 million viewers, up 28% over 2019. In addition, NCAA March Madness Live also hit a new high in live unique viewers and total minutes for First Four coverage.

TUDN will serve up the U.S. Men’s National Team against the Mexican National Team for a ticket to this year’s FIFA World Cup on Thursday at 9p on Univision and TUDN. The historic matchup will mark the final faceoff between the Concacaf giants for World Cup seed until qualifying play begins for the 2030 World Cup. On matchday TUDN will be live from Estadio Azteca with the popular shows Línea de Cuatro and Fútbol Club broadcasting from the venue. Also, for the first time in three years, the entire team of sportscasters covering the matchup will be at the stadium. Alejandro Berry hosts.

With baseball back, MLB.TV unveiled its coming plans, including a free spring preview until March 24. In addition, new plays on the platform will see MLB Big Inning air seven days a week, bringing live look-ins, breaking highlights, and big moments as they happen; lLocal Pregame and Postgame coverage for certain teams during the regular season; updates throughout the season with new playback controls like inning milestones, in-game details, and a personalized scoreboard; as well as an expanded MLB.TV content library.

Point Road Productions, in collaboration with NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett’s Content Cartel and Marc Levin’s Blowback Productions, announced the new documentary, Nothing But Net. The film takes an up close and personal look into the business of college basketball through the unfolding narrative of Angolan five-star recruit and NCAA Tournament-bound Silvio De Sousa. The feature-length film is directed and written by Billy Raftery, Jr.

WWE’s WrestleMania 38 will hit movie theaters for the two-night experience, partnering with Fathomevents.com for fans to see the show in cinemas on both April 2 and April 3. Headlining matches include Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women’s Title, and Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns in a winner take all, title unification match for the WWE and Universal Titles.

RIP to John Clayton, the ESPN NFL insider who died Friday at the age of 67. “John Clayton passed away today at a Seattle area hospital,” ESPN’s Chris Mortensen tweeted. “His wife Pat and sister Amy were at his side and communicated earlier he passed peacefully after a brief illness. We loved John. We are mourning his loss.”

2022 SPORTS MEDIA AWARDS

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SPONSORSHIP & PROMOTION

The NBA announced that Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s Sire Spirits locked in a multi-year partnership with the Houston Rockets. The deal will see Jackson’s wine and spirits brands, Branson Cognac and Le Chemin du Roi Champagne, featured throughout the Toyota Center through Sire Spirits-themed bars, a court-side section, a private suite (which will belong to Jackson), as well as a restaurant. Meanwhile, Jackson’s philanthropic the G-Unity Foundation, will work with the Houston Rockets on community programs.

Volkswagen inked a deal to become the exclusive automotive partner of the LA Galaxy and Dignity Health Sports Park (DHSP) as well as a Founding Partner of DHSP. As a Founding Partner of DHSP, a premium and category exclusive designation, Volkswagen will receive premium indoor and outdoor signage in and around Dignity Health Sports Park. As the exclusive automotive partner of the LA Galaxy, will engage fans as a title night sponsor of one regular season home game per year at DHSP. “We are excited to bring Volkswagen’s enthusiasm of soccer to the local level with our LA Galaxy partnership. We look forward to engaging with the fans and community throughout the season,” said Dave Lueders, vice president, Western Region – Volkswagen of America, Inc.

CrossFit LLC announced the largest prize purse in history for the 2022 NOBULL CrossFit Games, $2.845 million in total payouts for athletes across all divisions, presented by title sponsor NOBULL. The total prize purse will increase by $330,000 from last year’s payout of $2.515 million, the largest increase in eight years. “NOBULL was born in CrossFit and we’re proud to invest in the growth of the sport as the title sponsor of the CrossFit Games,” said Todd Meleney, Chief Marketing Officer, NOBULL. “This increase in the finals prize purse reflects our commitment to expanding opportunities for CrossFit athletes. Our passion for this community has never been stronger and we’re excited for the future.”

DIGITAL, DATA & TECH

Sportec Solutions, the sports technology joint venture between Deltatre and DFL, assumed the majority shareholding of Vieww GMBH a leading provider of Goal-Line Technology (GLT) and Video Assistant Referee (VAR) solutions. STS will utilize Vieww technology in a deal that will run for an initial 5 years, beginning next season (2022/23), and encompasses all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 games including relegation play-offs and Super Cup fixtures as well as DFB competitions matches.

ESPORTS

Blizzard announced that the Overwatch 2 beta would be available on April 26. The beta comes after a decision to split the PvP and PvE modes of the game, allowing players to sample new hero reworks, as well as the new five-vs-five compositions, and new maps before the game releases.

The Red Bull Solo Q tournament is coming back in 2022 as the world’s top solo League of Legends players compete in an international one-on-one event. The 2022 event kicks off this month and will culminate in the Red Bull Solo Q World Finals later this year with tournaments running across 25 countries. The world finals that will feature 20 national qualifiers as well as select international competitors.

JBL teamed with100 Thieves to launch the JBL x 100 Thieves headset. According to the announcement, “100 Thieves has imprinted its signature geo print design on the JBL Quantum ONE headset built for exceptional in-game sound and performance.” A limited number of the headsets will be available beginning March 24 at 1p exclusively on StockX via DropX. “Collaborating with JBL has been an incredible experience and highlights how game-changing quality sound can be,” said Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, 100 Thieves founder and CEO. “We strive to work with brands that share our commitment of embracing diversity at the intersection of gaming, culture, and lifestyle in a forward-thinking way.”

ESPORTS & GAMING BRAND ACTIVATION
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ON THIS DAY in
1961: Art Modell buys the Cleveland Browns.

IN THE KNOW
What’s the diameter of a basketball hoop in inches? (Email [email protected] with your answer and be sure to include your name, company and city).

Answer to Our Last Sports Trivia Question
Approximately how long is the swimming portion of an Olympic triathlon? Answer: 1.5 kilometers. Kudos: Michael Ritz-Lenox Advisors/NY; Cory Angerthal-AMC Networks/NY; Marc Goldstein-Marc Goldstein Media Solutions/NY; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton; Andy Pittman-TAMU/College Station; Joe Lyons-ESPN/Dallas; Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/LA

Cynopsis Team