Over 300,000 attendees from across the country make their way to Omaha, Nebraska, each year to cheer on the best of the best baseball teams during The Men’s College World Series. This diverse audience, full of all ages, including Generation Z (Gen Z), offers a large population pool for Midwest Dairy to connect with. Research shows that when consumer sentiment toward the dairy industry is positive, consumers are more likely to purchase dairy when at the dairy case. For this reason, Midwest Dairy works with partners to target a large consumer audience to build trust in and around dairy.
The Men’s College World Series, a national event traditionally taking place in June, is a unique opportunity for dairy to share its story with the masses. For the third year in a row, Midwest Dairy had an onsite presence in the Omaha Baseball Village venue. Through checkoff’s Undeniably Dairy booth, we had the opportunity to engage with consumers through various activities to learn and enjoy dairy foods.
The Undeniably Dairy booth offered many opportunities for baseball fans to experience dairy in a fun and interactive way. We partnered with the local YMCA to draw in the Gen Z crowd by providing gaming systems allowing consumers to play esports games that included dairy callouts. Booth visitors had the chance to spin the dairy trivia wheel or drop a Plinko chip to answer dairy nutrition and sustainability questions for a prize. Thanks to generous donations by local processors, over 1,200 chocolate milk pints, 2,500 cheese sticks, and 750 lactose-free milk beverage samples were also enjoyed by attendees.
On the weekends, two very popular guests joined the booth, ‘Babe’ and ‘Ruth.’ The two dairy calves were on site allowing baseball fans to interact with them along with a dairy farmer to answer all their questions. To their followers, Omaha Baseball Village shared a photo of the calves with their ‘Hero” for the day.
Before the event, a Pure Nebraska segment promoting the dairy experience aired to over 11,500 viewers and 36,500 Facebook followers. Midwest Dairy also partnered with Nelson Produce Farm, who joined to hand out produce samples in the booth and promoted the event on their social platforms.
Finding ways to reach consumers with dairy’s farm-to-table story in out-of-the-box places is important and significant events like this shine a positive spotlight on the dairy industry nationwide. Reaching this vast consumer base with a fun experience helps bring dairy to life beyond the grocery store while educating consumers on important topics and giving them a taste of the dairy products they love.