Most food brands buy their way into football. They rent a stadium, light a grill, cue the tailgate montage and hope someone remembers the logo.
Erich & Kallman found a cheaper door. Football already had the word — it was just filed in the wrong aisle.
The result is “The Best Slider in Football,” a King’s Hawaiian campaign built on the overlap between what the brand makes and what quarterbacks do, with Eli Manning brought in to argue the case. There’s a national spot, a petition and slider buns on the line.
The pun is the premise, not the punchline
For most shops, a pun this clean is where the thinking stops. Someone says it in a session, everybody laughs and it ends up as a tag under a plate of pulled pork.
Here it’s the whole architecture. King’s Hawaiian has spent generations as the bread behind gameday sliders — buffalo chicken, pulled pork, chopped cheese. Manning spent a career knowing when to throw, when to run and when to get down.
Two kinds of sliders, one title, and only one problem: you can’t be the best at something nobody counts.
Football counts everything except this
The sport tracks passing yards, rushing yards, sacks and every snap in between. The quarterback slide, which is a genuine skill and a constant source of argument among players, coaches, fans and media, gets nothing.
That’s the gap the campaign drives through. Sliding is a decision — stop chasing the extra yard, protect the season, live to take the next snap — and the campaign treats the absence of a slide column as an oversight worth correcting.
“Sliders are a crucial part of game day, both on and off the field,” said Raouf Moussa, CMO at King’s Hawaiian. “Therefore, we want to recognize their importance by making them an official stat. We knew we had to team up with one of the most iconic quarterbacks to help right this wrong.”
Manning as expert witness
Casting matters here. Manning’s reputation for the tactical slide is the credential, which makes him less celebrity endorser than plaintiff.
“The best way to settle a debate about the best slider in football is to look at the stats, so when King’s Hawaiian came up with the stroke of inspiration to track quarterback slides, I couldn’t wait to work with them to bring this to football and slider fans everywhere,” said Manning.
The spot runs nationally through football season, with Manning making his case for the title while the brand quietly reminds everyone who holds it off the field.
Sign here, eat later
Fans can back the petition at BestSliderInFootball.com. Sign, submit proof and you’re in the running for free King’s Hawaiian slider buns for life.
Read the fine print and “for life” turns out to be two products a month for 30 years — 720 vouchers, itemized. Somewhere a lawyer did that math, and it might be the funniest line in the campaign.
Why a bread brand gets to referee
The move works because it never asks football fans to care about bread. It asks them to care about football, hands them a grievance they already half-believe in, then shows up with buns.
Erich & Kallman, 10 years in and a four-time Ad Age Small Agency of the Year winner, has built a decade on exactly this kind of thing: find the thing people argue about, take a side, sell the bread on the way out.
Learn more
Erich & Kallman
Steven Erich LinkedIn
Eric Kallman LinkedIn
Erich & Kallman LinkedIn
King’s Hawaiian
Raouf Moussa LinkedIn
The Best Slider in Football
Contact: st***@***********an.com
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
