Texas Pete is a storied brand with a passionate regional fanbase. Found in pantries and restaurants across the Southeastern United States, it’s affectionately referred to by some as “the ketchup of the South,” and is one of the most popular hot sauces in the US.
While the nearly 100-year-old Texas Pete brand is beloved, it needs to connect with new consumers throughout the country in order to continue to grow
it was clear that regardless of the idea or strategy behind the work, it would need to punch above its weight in order to make an outsized impression on new audiences in order to put us on the path to achieving our overall goal to increase Texas Pete’s share of category and take the brand from southern staple to household name.
When we dove into the category, we found that hot sauce is a very cultural product. In fact, many people use their brand of hot sauce as an identity marker (looking at you, Beyonce; “I got hot sauce in my bag/swag”). However, other brands weren’t talking about hot sauce in that way. We saw an opportunity to tap into culture with this brand and connect Texas Pete to what our consumers were seeking in their lives.
From there, we had to understand who we were talking to: the next generation of hot saucers. Gen Z is known as the “safest generation” – not taking risks or going on adventures, but stuck on Zoom meetings and on their phones. While they have the world at their fingertips, their lives have somehow gotten more boring. But we also saw them ‘rebelling,’ seeking out little thrills, even if that just meant shutting their laptop at 5 p.m. (you crazy kids!). With this, we saw an opportunity to step in and help them unleash their inner cowboy.
It was important to find a way to distinguish ourselves from competitors in the category. Luckily, we had the perfect, previously-untapped piece of Texas Pete iconography to encourage our audience to unleash their inner cowboy: our own cowboy, Texas Pete himself, who has been on the bottle since the beginning. Not only was this an untapped resource for Texas Pete, but cowboys were (and still are) having a moment culturally. And we’re not just talking about your John Wayne types—everyone, from influencers to Post Malone, to Grammy AOTY winner Beyonce, is giddy-uppin’ to cowboy culture.
Leveraging the brand’s memorable moniker, carte blanche character, and a catchy new jingle was the perfect way for us to create lore and nod to the company’s legacy while bringing it into the modern era. The previously untold Tale of Texas Pete also gave us a chance to introduce ourselves to new audiences while building intrigue and affinity for the brand among both a new audience and our long-time fans.
Although we’re still in the early days of the campaign, preliminary results are all pointing towards it being a resounding success.
Since launching our CTV and OLV campaigns, over a third of all attributed sales are new-to-brand, showing successful incrementality and customer growth. In addition to the campaign video spots, we also started advertising on Instacart where we’ve seen Texas Pete making gains in terms of impression share within the hot sauce category as well as in overall category share. We’ve continued to build on this momentum and have also seen additional gains in both category impression share in the Condiment and Sauce categories since launch.
We’ve also seen major successes on social. Having refined our audience and adjusted our content to speak to them vs. at them (by blending culture and sentiment to meet them where they’re at), we’ve reached a larger audience, brought in more engagements, and grown our following on Instagram (+3.1%) and TikTok (+7561.3%).
