Steve Robinson sat within the top deck of the Georgia Dome on New Year’s Eve, 1993, and his instincts informed him there had been possibility percolating on the sphere underneath him. Clemson became gambling Kentucky within the Peach Bowl, and although the sport was now not a sellout, Robinson marveled over the vibe inside the stadium. 3 The chief marketing officer for Chick-fil-A, Robinson, started including thoughts to a stew in his head at some stage in the second half of the sport. His mock-up included:
Demographics.
Geography.
Licensing.
Culture.
It turned into not a lightning bolt revelation where Robinson jumped to his feet together with his Eureka! Second. It was careful attention, the drip-drip-drip of the marketing plan being hatched, and the excitement in the stadium became Robinson’s fuel. You have heard of outlines for a transformative commercial enterprise project in garages or scribbled on a serviette at a restaurant. This becomes a soccer recreation. Finally, Robinson grew to become his spouse, Dianne, and stated, “I’m surprised this sport doesn’t have a name sponsor.”
“Well, why don’t you do it,” she stated. He did do it. Robinson took the one’s instincts—university football paired with Chick-fil-A—and brought the technological know-how of marketing and took the idea to the CFA executive committee. He proposed that Chick-fil-A has to launch itself into the enterprise of university football by sponsoring the Peach Bowl. Not everybody shared the vision. There turned into a vote: four-four. Then Truett Cathy, the founder, broke the tie.
“Let’s do it,” stated the mythical boss. It changed into a benchmark second in Atlanta’s sports records, one of the motives the metropolis can name itself “The sports activities capital of the U.S.” Chick-fil-A has become the name sponsor to the game, elevated the Peach Bowl’s national reputation, and helped grabbed semifinal and championship games of the College Football Playoff for Atlanta. In 2008, Chick-fil-A started the countrywide trend of a marquee game during the university soccer season.
Along the way, university soccer helped Chick-fil-A, founded in tiny Hapeville, Ga., end up a countrywide brand. Robinson’s process is to assist the operators of the eating places to promote chook sandwiches. They are selling them by way of the armful, specifically on Saturdays. Robinson, who has retired, has extra details at the Chick-fil-A partnership with university football in his just-released e-book, Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A: How Faith, Cows, and Chicken Built an Iconic Brand. “We were blessed to come along at the right time,” Robinson stated. College football in 1993 became gaining steam, and name sponsors were latching on to bowl video games to construct their brands—the Fed Ex Orange Bowl, among others.
