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Digital Momvertising Opps: Barilla sponsors Little League Baseball (Score 32)

at the Little League Baseball World Series, which will be held in Williamsport, PA from August 17th - 28th. Barilla will provide product samplings and other on-site experiences as part of the agreement. Samplings will include the Barilla Protein+ Pasta with Barilla Premium Marina sauce, Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese and fresh basil. It will also host the Barilla booth at the Little League World Series Fan Zone, where it will offer a photo opportunity and a special collector's pin. Barilla may be interested in additional sponsorship opportunities, so reach out if you can provide assistance. 

Per Pathmatics, Barilla earned 14.4m impressions YTD through desktop video ads (65%), Instagram ads (18%), Facebook ads (16%) and desktop display ads (1%). It placed the majority (99%) of these ads directly onto sites such as youtube.com, instagram.com, facebook.com, aol.com and livestrong.com. It placed the remainder (1%) indirectly through Google AdX+AdSense onto tumblr.com. It spent nearly $177k on digital display ads YTD, a massive decrease from $2.8m spent in this channel during the same time period of 2021. Full-year spend fell slightly (6%) from $3.3m in 2020 to $3.1m in 2021. 

Sellers-- Barilla targets primary shoppers such as Gen-X and millennial women (moms). The Little League sponsorship should be popular with these consumers. Barilla has drastically reduced digital display spend so far in 2022, which indicates the channel has not been providing a positive ROI. The company could also be decreasing spend to make more room in its budget for sponsorships. It also invests in print and radio ads, per Kantar. Barilla's new sponsorship deal, combined with the spend decreases, indicates the company may be trying some new marketing strategies.  Sellers should get in touch for more information. 

Agency & martech readers-- Barilla currently works with global creative AOR Publicis Italy, media buying/planning AOR HMT Associates on some experiential work. I advise readers to reach out to see if Barilla is planning to review any of these accounts. You may be able to pick up some of the company's business because both OMD and Edelman are well over the three-year average agency tenure.