From the Stands to the Strategy: How We Built a Toronto Blue Jays Contest Campaign Across Canada

By Sean Beckingham

If you’ve worked with Branding & Buzzing for any length of time, you already know one thing about Marian and me:

We’re Blue Jays fans.

Not the “we’ll watch the playoffs if they’re doing well” kind of fans.

The kind of fans who plan trips around games.

The kind of fans who take team members to Rogers Centre.

The kind of fans who bring clients to games because some of the best business conversations happen somewhere between the first pitch and the seventh-inning stretch.

So when P&H Foods approached us to help develop a Toronto Blue Jays contest campaign for their family of egg brands, it felt like a project that landed right in our wheelhouse.

What looked simple on the surface — “run a Blue Jays contest” — quickly became one of those projects that reminds you how much work goes into making marketing look effortless.

One Contest. Five Brands. Multiple Provinces.

The campaign brought together:

• Conestoga Farms (Ontario)
• Farmer’s Finest (Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan)
• Sparks Eggs (Alberta)
• Golden Valley Eggs (British Columbia)
• Gray Ridge Egg Farms (Ontario)

The challenge wasn’t creating one contest.

The challenge was creating one contest that felt relevant across multiple provinces, multiple brands, multiple product lines and one of Canada’s most recognizable sports partnerships.

That’s where strategy matters.

Rather than building five separate campaigns, we developed a master platform called:

Crack Into The Big Leagues

The concept gave every participating brand a consistent foundation while still allowing regional customization.

Simple for consumers.

Not always simple behind the scenes.

The Part Nobody Sees

One of the things I love about agency life is that people often see the final social post and assume it took an afternoon to create.

The reality is usually a little different.

For this project we navigated:

• Client feedback
• Multiple brand stakeholders
• Toronto Blue Jays partnership requirements
• Legal reviews
• Contest compliance
• Trademark approvals
• Creative approvals
• Adaptations for different provinces

Every logo placement mattered.

Every word mattered.

Every visual needed approval.

And because it involved a professional sports partnership, the review process was understandably detailed.

Projects like this remind us that great creative isn’t just about having ideas.

It’s about building systems that allow those ideas to survive the approval process.

A Familiar Face Returns

One of my favourite parts of this campaign was working with Chris Violette.

Years ago, I discovered Chris as a model during a casting search. Since then he’s built an impressive career as an actor and television personality. Watching that journey unfold has been incredibly rewarding.

So having him come back and work with us on this campaign felt a little like a full-circle moment.

Those are the moments you don’t see on a project timeline.

But they’re often the most rewarding part of what we do.

Filming Around Rogers Centre

To create authentic content, we filmed around Rogers Centre itself.

The thinking was simple.

If the prize is a Blue Jays experience, the content should feel connected to that experience.

Rather than creating traditional advertising, we focused on creator-style content that felt native to social media.

Real people.

Real conversations.

Real reactions.

The goal was to make viewers feel like they were hearing about the contest from a friend rather than a brand.

That approach led to:

• Five unique UGC reels
• Regionalized scripts
• Product integration for each brand
• Organic and paid social versions
• Website and social adaptations

The content needed to work whether someone was watching in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or British Columbia.

Why We Love Sports Partnerships

Sports partnerships create something special.

Fans already have an emotional connection.

Your job as a marketer is to respect that relationship while creating something valuable for the brand.

Done poorly, it feels like advertising.

Done properly, it feels like participation.

That’s always our goal.

Whether we’re working with restaurants, consumer packaged goods, tourism destinations or sports organizations, we try to create campaigns people actually want to engage with.

The Final Result

The campaign successfully united five regional egg brands under one national contest platform while leveraging the excitement and recognition of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Behind the scenes, it required creative strategy, production planning, approvals, legal reviews, creator management, paid media support and more than a few conversations about baseball.

For Marian and me, projects like this are especially fun because they bring together two things we genuinely love:

Great marketing and Blue Jays baseball.

And if we’re lucky, maybe a hot dog and a cold drink somewhere around the fifth inning.

Deliverables Produced

Creative

• Master Contest Visual
• 5 Social Adaptations
• 7 Website Banner Adaptations

Video

• 5 UGC Reels
• Regionalized Scripts
• Creator Coordination
• Editing & Revisions

Paid Media Support

• Contest Traffic Strategy
• Social Copy Development
• Story Assets
• Campaign Recommendations

Because sometimes the work that looks the simplest from the outside is actually the result of hundreds of small decisions behind the scenes.