Jack Link’s National Jerky Day campaign won Gold at The Drum Awards for Marketing, featuring a live event with a spectacular drone show and QR code sales, resulting in record sales and 289.8M media impressions.
Jack Link’s National Jerky Day was bigger than ever in 2024, featuring a live jerky-tasting extravaganza and a spectacular waterside drone show, framing the nearby Statue of Liberty. Guests had the chance to buy jerky straight from a QR code in the sky. Not only did Jack Link’s deliver on its promise of spotting Sasquatch for the first time in Liberty State Park, but the entire supply of Sasquatch Care Packages sold out on Amazon within 48 hours. While he doesn’t smile a whole lot, we know it made Sasquatch very, very happy.
Jack Link’s is the biggest name in jerky, and since the brand invented National Jerky Day (NJD) in 2012, every year on June 12th, they’ve upped the ante when it comes to celebrating this signature "on-the-go" meat treat. Staying the leader in a category with increasing competition doesn’t come easy, and while past NJD efforts were big on spectacle, they didn’t always drive sales figures worth celebrating.
For NJD 2024, Jack Link’s wanted to meet or exceed the audacity of previous efforts while shifting its priority to selling way, way more product than the 12 years prior. At the heart of this year’s unique and attention-grabbing NJD tribute would be a limited-time Amazon-exclusive deal—50% off the Sasquatch Care Package, a 15-piece sampler of jerky and other assorted ready-to-eat meats.
Our job was to find a way to deliver a bold, word-of-mouth-worthy event that also drove a literal and figurative ton of sales—and to get it all off the ground in under six weeks. As Jack Link’s CEO said, "Get as much jerky in peoples’ mouths as possible!" And that is exactly what we did.
Although the "outdoorsy meat lovers" audience would inform our media and partnership efforts, creating a NJD event that drove actual sales was guided by a fairly straightforward line of thinking:
We would take NJD to new heights by creating the largest Sasquatch sighting ever; physically, digitally, and spiritually. And we’d leverage media buzz, influencer engagement, and media relations to drive sales through Jack Link’s main sales channel on Amazon.
The key insight was extracted from the classic lore of Sasquatch. Rarely seen, sometimes a shadow, often a silhouette—but spotted making his way to NYC.
This all gave birth to the creative concept "Sasquatch in the Skies"—the largest Sasquatch sighting ever in the skies above Lady Liberty. The effort kicked off with an invite-only sampling event on June 9th for select food, lifestyle, and outdoor influencers and their guests, hosted by Sasquatch himself.
But that wasn’t enough. Next, the guests were whisked to New Jersey’s Liberty State Park, where things really took off. 500 drones filled the sky over the Hudson, forming a Sasquatch that dwarfed the nearby Statue of Liberty, and a light show that made the Manhattan Skyline look dim in comparison.
The drone show wrapped with a massive 400-foot-tall QR code driving to the limited-time Sasquatch Care Package deal on Amazon, encouraging attendees to "Feed Their Wild Side" and fuel their summer fun.
Professional and influencer-shot footage of the event hit the internet within hours of the show, setting the stage for extensive media coverage, a Twitch takeover, and, most importantly, rapid organic spread of the Amazon link.
The benefits of selling out were immense. In only six weeks from brief to event, the collaboration between the client, our agency team, and event partners ensured we had every ‘I’ dotted, and ‘T’ crossed. From Port Authority certificates to FAA clearance and crowd management, we were prepared for any possible issues. Someone even secured a crystal-clear view of the Statue of Liberty for us—quite the stage. After seeing a larger-than-life Sasquatch mascot, and constellations of jerky falling from the heavens, Jack Link’s fans got the biggest NJD spectacle yet. And Jack Link’s experienced sky’s-the-limit sales figures that exceeded everyone’s already-high expectations.
When the drones settled, we hadn’t just moved a ton of jerky. We’d moved twenty tons of it on Amazon alone—and sold out the entire stock (38,500 Sasquatch Care Packages) in less than two days. We had actually sold as much jerky as logistically possible before NJD had officially begun.
Our team made a lightning-fast pivot to direct sales to Jack Link’s online retail store. We kept the momentum going through June 12th, where sales doubled from the prior year’s holiday, and were 9x a typical day of sales on JackLinks.com.
Influencer and social content generated 18.3M impressions—25% more engagement than a typical week, and total media coverage garnered more than 289.8M impressions.
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