Vol 25. Death Wish Coffee: Performance enhancing ?
How Death Wish coffee ended up signing the first anonymous NIL deal
The NCAA is known for weird rules. Three University of Oklahoma players were once fined for eating too much pasta at a graduation banquet. A baseball team’s game of laser tag was considered “impermissible entertainment.” And until relatively recently, bagel toppings and spreads were banned.?
One of the many weird NCAA rules caught the eye of Death Wish, a coffee company based in Saratoga Springs, New York. And it led to a cleverly executed campaign that poked fun at the NCAA’s rules while earning the company some positive press along the way.?
This week, Case Studied explores how Death Wish ended up signing the first anonymous NIL deal with NCAA athletes.
The Brief:
The NCAA rule in question here lists caffeine as a banned substance if ingested at an excessive rate in a short window before a competition. What exactly does that mean? Athletes can’t ingest more than 500 milligrams of caffeine which is slightly higher than average within 2-3 hours of competition. For Death Wish drinkers, that equates to about three cups of coffee.
“As a joke, I was like, ‘We should not sponsor these guys,” said Frank Garcia, Group Creative Director at Mojo Supermarket (the agency Death Wish works with). “But then it was, ‘Can we sponsor them anonymously?”
Death Wish was, in fact, able to do this with a name, image, and likeness (NIL) deal. If that term doesn’t ring a bell, just picture any ad with Shaq (or your chosen athlete/celebrity)—that’s an NIL deal because it uses his name, image, and likeness. These deals have been hotly debated by politicians and administrators to push for more transparency with these deals and athlete earnings. But Death Wish took it in a different direction.?
Using the “three cup ban” by the NCAA as a springboard, Death Wish decided to run their own version of a satirical advertising clap back.
The Execution:
Death Wish coffee signed three players to a first-of-its-kind NIL deal. The players were kept completely anonymous, with only their “likeness” being used in a Death Wish commercial announcing the deal and the rule that inspired it. The players were represented paid actors, whose faces were blurred to add to the anonymity vibe.?
Since the athletes couldn’t share any ads on their social media, Death Wish ran ads through digital out-of-home platforms, TikTok, and Instagram under its company account.?
It also used its network of influencers to publish ads on their own channels, on behalf of the NIL talent who couldn’t do it themselves. To add to the mystique of it, the company ran a social media competition to “guess the players” that are part of the NIL deal. The winner received a year’s worth of Death Wish coffee.?
Death Wish’s Chief Marketing Officer Samantha Siegal said, “One of the fun things about being anonymous is that we hope people see themselves in it. Maybe not running on the football field, but see themselves in this idea of taking a risk.”
The Results:
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The commercial racked up 622k views on YouTube within the 6 months it’s been published. On top of that, Death Wish earned a ton of media attention for signing an NIL deal based on anonymity rather than transparency.?
Though the numbers aren’t publicly available, the campaign surely gave Death Wish a nice boost in brand awareness and opened the door to some new audiences.?
We can only speculate but perhaps the football players that Death Wish sponsored acquired a taste for their coffee. If nothing else, they earned some points for boldness.?
One of the anonymous players said, “I know what it means to take risks. But let’s be real, nothing is riskier than messing with the NCAA. But if anyone can pull off a stunt like this, it’s gonna be Death Wish. They’re bold af for this one.”
The Takeaways:
There are levels to the cleverness and risk-taking you can pull off in advertising. But even industries with the strictest of guidelines can have a little fun sometimes. Here are some ways you can bring Death Wish’s bold energy into your campaigns:?
1. Piggyback on news
NIL deals have been a polarizing topic for decades and have recently become much more newsworthy as athletes have begun signing sponsorships.
By taking a conversation being had by many and infusing themselves into it, Death Wish was able to steal some of the press attention for themselves.
Pay attention to what people are talking about and perhaps you’ll find opportunities to naturally insert your brand into the conversation.
2. You can be funny on a budget
Humor never goes out of style and doesn’t need to be expensive for it to land. In the case of Death Wish, by leaning into anonymity and the idea of coffee as a “performance-enhancing” substance, they were able to reap all the benefits of a big sponsorship deal, without the price tag of signing a major athlete.
With so much viral and socially native content being created without high production value, it’s never been easier to produce compelling and funny creative, without the cost of a big-budget shoot.
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