Fall means football, football means tailgating, and tailgating is all about food. So it was a natural choice for Zatarain’s to build its fall promotion around football.

The “Elevate Your Tailgate” promotion launched in mid-August. Zatarain’s partnered with the BCS to offer one lucky winner a trip for two to New Orleans for the Allstate® BCS National Championship Game in January. Peter Mayer developed online advertising and emails to promote the contest, as well as graphic elements on zatarains.com.

All of these tactics were designed to drive users to the Zat’s Gameday Facebook application, also developed by Peter Mayer. With the Facebook app, Zatarain’s fans can enter the BCS sweepstakes, download coupons, get tailgating recipes and participate in Zatarain’s Gameday Gallery, which allows fans to upload photos of tailgating food for recipe tips and a shot at a weekly Zatarain’s Gift Box.

When the promotion began, Zatarain’s had 105,688 Facebook fans and a goal of reaching 130,000 by November 4, the end of the promotion. With more than seven weeks left to go, and the NFL season having just completed its first weekend, we’ve already topped 122,000 fans.