Super Bowl recovery takes time, so how ’bout a holiday?
Heinz petition seeks day off after big game
Heinz is giving employees the day off on the Monday after the Super Bowl. It wants you to have the day off, too. It’s an idea designed to be as popular as ketchup on french fries.
“We are trying to rally people around the idea that the day after the big game should really be a day to celebrate,” Nicole Kulwicki, head of Heinz brands, says. “And in fact, it should be a national holiday, which we have lovingly named ‘Smunday.’ ”
Heinz asks supporters to sign a petition at www.smunday.org and says that if it gets more than 100,000, it will send the petition to Congress.
The tone of the campaign is a joke: “Sign it. For your sanity. For your family. For your country.” But Kulwicki insists it is a serious effort. The petition says 16 million people call in sick or don’t show up the day after the Super Bowl, which Heinz is careful to call “the Big Game.” That’s be- cause Heinz is not a Super Bowl advertiser.
People in the industry call this sort of thing ambush marketing, in which a brand tries to associate itself with an event although it is not paying to be a sponsor.
“We are calling it a grass-roots effort,” Kulwicki says.
Heinz produced an online spot that shows ketchup and mustard containers talking up the holiday.
“We would have loved it if the Steelers were in it, Pittsburgh being the home of Heinz,” Kulwicki says. “But we are still rallying around (the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons) and are excited for the Big Game.”
January and November are already two-holiday months. February, the shortest month, has Presidents’ Day. Does it really need another national holiday?
“The Monday after the game is one of the worst days of the year,” Kulwicki says. “Nobody wants to go to work the day after.”
“The day after the big game should really be a day to celebrate ... which we have lovingly named ‘Smunday.’ ” Nicole Kulwicki, Heinz