Johnsonville is taking its college football marketing strategy into the trenches.
The sausage brand has partnered with the Joe Moore Award, the only major college football award focused on an entire offensive line rather than an individual player. The partnership gives Johnsonville an opportunity to connect its brand with the teamwork, camaraderie and collective effort behind the sport while strengthening its position around one of its biggest consumption occasions: tailgating.
The strategy builds on Johnsonville’s “Keep It Juicy” campaign, which launched in 2024 around the idea that people are at their best when different personalities and flavors come together. The Joe Moore Award, now in its 12th year, similarly celebrates five offensive linemen working together as a unit.
“For us, this is a continuing to build a level of affinity with college football fans,” said Marc Bennett, associate director of integrated marketing at Johnsonville. “Tailgating is just as important for us as we continue. We want to see growth in this category, which is a big, big category.”
The partnership also gives Johnsonville an avenue into college football culture without relying solely on traditional team sponsorships. The Joe Moore Award focuses on the players who create opportunities for the rest of the team, giving Johnsonville a way to own a more specific part of the football conversation.
That positioning fits with how the brand views sausage consumption. Bennett said consumers typically eat sausage in social settings, whether they are with friends, family, neighbors or fellow fans. Tailgating provides a natural environment for the brand to connect food with those communal experiences.
“People rarely have sausage alone,” Bennett said. “They often have it in the presence of friends, family, neighbors or fans of other teams that are strangers about to be friends.”
The partnership will also have a content component. Starting August 26, College Football Hall of Famer Aaron Taylor will host “The Joe Moore Award Show,” a weekly series on the award’s YouTube channel examining offensive line performance throughout the season. The award will be presented to the winning offensive line in December.
For Johnsonville, supporting the award’s existing content operation is part of the strategy. Rather than creating an entirely separate media property, the brand can help amplify an established platform and associate itself with the audience that follows it.
“We want to raise the profile of that award because we will ultimately raise ours in the process,” Bennett said.
YouTube was the natural home for the series, particularly because Taylor is directly involved in producing content around the award. Johnsonville also continues to use Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest as part of its broader social strategy, with each platform serving a different purpose.
The YouTube decision also comes as short form video continues to become more important for brands. YouTube changed how Shorts views are counted in March 2025, with a view now registering when a Short starts playing or replays, without a minimum watch time requirement. The original metric remains available as “engaged views,” giving marketers another way to evaluate audience behavior.
For Johnsonville, that makes the Joe Moore Award partnership part of a broader content play, where college football, social video and tailgating can work together to keep the brand in front of fans well beyond game day.
