What do you get when you combine 30,000 granola bars, 18,000 cups of coffee and 5,200 donuts? One of the best sponsored volunteer events the Ryder Cup has ever seen!
Earlier this year, SUPERVALU approached the Interactions team with a unique opportunity to assist in staffing a SUPERVALU-sponsored volunteer tent for 2016 Ryder Cup held this fall in Chaska, Minnesota. For those not familiar with the event, the Ryder Cup is a biennial golf competition that pits a team of the best U.S. golfers against their European counterparts. The event alternates venues, meaning it’s only held every four years in the U.S. and rarely (if ever) in the same place—making this an especially rare opportunity for Interactions and SUPERVALU.
With the help of Interactions’ Brand Ambassadors, SUPERVALU planned to offer the 3,800 volunteers at the Ryder Cup a continental breakfast and afternoon snack featuring private brand items each day of the week-long competition. Their initial estimates, based on typical traffic received at volunteer tents during previous Ryder Cup events, were approximately 300-400 daily visitors. However, this was the first time breakfast and “happy hour” snacks were provided. Word quickly spread—growing actual attendance to 1,500 or more daily visitors.
“The number of volunteers who visited the SUPERVALU events far surpassed expectations,” says Tammie Lukkonen, Business Manager for Interactions. “But thanks to our relationship with the SUPERVALU team and hard work from our field associates, we were able to overcome the challenges—reworking the logistics to source and obtain more product to serve to the volunteers.”
In all, the event was a great success, receiving high praise from SUPERVALU and volunteer attendees alike. According to Lukkonen, it also helped strengthen the partnership between Interactions and SUPERVALU. “We already have a great relationship with SUPERVALU through our Fresh Ideas in-store demonstration program, but this event reinforced our ability to do more than just demos,” she says. “It showed that we can be called upon to execute large, high profile experiential events. When the event became more complex than originally anticipated, our team went above and beyond to make sure things were done right. That’s one of our core values at Interactions—to deliver the solutions our clients need, when they need them.”