Background
Oscar Mayer, America’s most iconic meat company is all about sparking smiles. From our 27-foot-long hotdog-on-wheels (the Wienermobile), to hot dog shaped straws, to creating the longest running jingle in advertising history…about bologna.
In 1974, Oscar Mayer introduced ‘The Bologna Song’, the jingle that taught America how to spell B-O-L-O-G-N-A. It became a cultural phenomenon, featured on The Simpsons, and even parodied by Weird Al—sparking smiles for the millions of people singing along.
Objective
To celebrate 50 years of The Bologna Song, Oscar Mayer set out to turn this iconic history into a brand building tool. So, by introducing the jingle to a new generation of singers, our legacy lives on, and America can keep singing for the next 50 years.
Insight
In 2024, smiles are in decline, with the U.S. falling out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time. In a world craving joy, nostalgia isn’t just comforting—it’s necessary.
For 50 years, The Bologna Song has been a source of joy—but what if it could offer Americans more than a smile? What if it could give people what they really need, when they need it most.
Introducing Sing to Pay: the first jingle-based payment technology.
Oscar Mayer set out to turn our cultural currency into actual currency. That’s right, America can finally use the cultural value of singing The Bologna Song to pay for what they need—their groceries.
Execution
To bring Sing to Pay to life, Oscar Mayer partnered with Instacart, the #1 grocery delivery app, to design a seamless digital experience. Customers shopping online or in the app could upload their rendition to our custom-built platform, the verification technology would approve the lyrics (don’t worry, it didn’t judge their pitch), and once verified, Oscar Mayer would pay for their groceries. Essentially, instead of tapping a credit card or paying online—they sing The Bologna Song.
The core challenge was accessibility, how do we give everyone the opportunity to Sing to Pay? The hack was tapping into Instacart’s nationwide network, making this new form of payment available on any device, anywhere in the country, from day one—with groceries delivered right to your door.
Instacart became the first major retailer ever to accept singing as a form of payment.
To tease the launch, Oscar Mayer re-aired the original Bologna Song commercial during America’s Thanksgiving football game. This cross-generational moment prompted millions of families to share their nostalgia for the song with a mass audience of first-time listeners.
To amplify the campaign, Oscar Mayer launched a bold, social-first strategy, activating fans across TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and beyond. We teamed up with influencers Cost n’ Mayor to choreograph a dance to the original Bologna Song—inviting people to share their own renditions. From there, the audio took on a life of its own, inspiring remixes, opera versions, country covers, and more.
We didn’t stop there—we took to the streets to prove you could Sing to Pay anywhere, capturing smile-worthy content on a downtown Chicago stage, a college campus, on a bike , and even at a bar. The user-generated content of people singing The Bologna Song became the heart of this campaign, amplifying Sing to Pay far beyond what any traditional media could, turning social engagement into an opportunity to cash in on culture.
The result? America didn’t just sing along—they turned a nostalgic jingle into a viral sensation, and the most positively received campaign in Oscar Mayer history.
600+ Million Earned Impressions (that’s like if every American sang it twice)
600 earned media placements, from news to cultural publications
100% positive sentiment in earned media coverage
Driving 175,000+ shoppers to Instacart in the first week
18% increase in Oscar Mayer bologna sales on Instacart (a.k.a over 2 million slices of bologna)
Overall, ~$20MM worth of bologna sales over the course of the campaign
Social media was flooded with real stories: we saw a college kid share his Bologna Song remix with his grandpa, a family singalong around the dinner table, a retired teacher remembered teaching this song to her students in the 70s, and a 6 year old spelling B-O-L-O-G-N-A for the first time. Sing to Pay connected people across generations over a simple tune, creating moments of simple joy.
Beyond a double-digit bump in sales, Sing to Pay gave The Bologna Song an encore for its 50th anniversary, introduced this icon to a new generation, and delivered the genuine smile America needed.
