Sweet Baby Ray’s is the country’s top-selling brand of barbecue sauce, with a growing line of more than 20 flavors of sauces, marinades and glazes that serve as a key ingredient for tangy and award-winning recipes served in restaurants, stadiums and home kitchens.

SUCCESS STORY

How America’s top brand of barbecue sauce successfully broke into a new product category with a quick-turn national media relations campaign.

The opportunity

Since launching with its Original barbecue sauce over 30 years ago, Sweet Baby Ray’s has developed a cult following for its mouthwatering blends that have a regular place in the refrigerators and pantries of professional and home chefs around the country.

As more Americans adopt lower-sugar and keto-friendly lifestyles, Sweet Baby Ray’s created a new recipe, known as Ray’s No Sugar Added, to deliver the same iconic taste with only 15 calories and 1g sugar per serving. Packaged in two flavors, the products shipped to retailers like Walmart, Target and Kroger the week before Memorial Day Weekend.

Sweet Baby Ray’s turned to the nimble team at Approach Marketing to draw upon extensive CPG and earned media experience to quickly create educated awareness and interest in Ray’s No Sugar Added barbecue sauces in time for the unofficial start of summer.

The approach

Within nine days of beginning our partnership, Approach formalized a media relations strategy designed to help inspire purchase among niche vegetarian, vegan, KETO, and diabetes-minded audiences by highlighting the nutrition profile and usage tips within earned stories. We emphasized how Ray’s No Sugar Added stands apart from other sugar free and reduced sugar barbecue sauces because of its “actually worth eating taste.”

To give longer legs to the new product announcement, we enlisted the expertise of a certified nutritionist to offer BBQ and entertaining tips that appeal to all dietary preferences around the table.

Three of Approach Marketing’s top media relations strategists jumped on board to kick off and maintain a steady drumbeat of brand coverage through the summer.

The introductory Ray’s No Sugar Added announcement debuted on Delish and Yahoo! in timing with Memorial Day Weekend before igniting online chatter across consumer and trade outlets and newsletters.

The impact

Appetizing headlines took over major websites, like “Why Sweet Baby Ray’s New BBQ Sauce has the Internet Buzzing,” and “Sweet Baby Ray’s New No Sugar BBQ Sauce is Perfect for Your KETO Friends.”

Over the course of three months, we reinforced the brand’s standing as a category leader with innovative and flavorful products that appeal to all tastes. Stories appeared in top sites including: Reader’s Digest, The Daily Beast, Mashed, The List, Forkly, Trend Hunter, Retail Dive and The Shelby Report. The volume of national media attention exceeded expectations and Approach was able to equip the Sweet Baby Ray’s team with a robust media coverage book to a priority retailer meeting.