Dannon Ups The Ante In Yogurt Wars

With Dannon CMO Sergio Fuster calling the yogurt maker's latest sponsorship "a big bet," Dannon announced plans on Wednesday to become the Official Yogurt Sponsor of the National Football League in 2015. The deal, which is the latest in an increasingly crowded sponsorship category, will aim to promote health through food while naturally, encouraging Americans to eat yogurt every day.

“We want to make yogurt more fun and more engaging because eating yogurt every day can help improve the quality of our diets, and sponsoring the NFL brings that to a whole new level,” said Sergio Fuster, Chief Marketing Officer, The Dannon Company. “Our hope is for Americans to look at yogurt – and our brands – as among the best possible choices they can make, regardless of when or how they chose to enjoy it. This is a big bet for us because we firmly believe that as a nation we have a huge opportunity to improve our eating habits, and the broad appeal and wide reach of the NFL will have a positive impact on that.”

After skipping the 2013 Super Bowl, Dannon was again an advertiser in 2014, following up on its initial Super Bowl campaign in 2012, and going toe-to-toe with greek yogurt category leader, Chobani. According to Dannon's estimates, the company now owns 33% of greek yogurt market share to Chobani's 35%.

“Encouraging people to get active and make better food choices is at the heart of our NFL PLAY 60 campaign and Dannon’s values align perfectly with those and other NFL efforts,” said Renie Anderson, NFL senior vice president of sponsorship and partnership management. “We are pleased to welcome Dannon to our family of sponsors and look forward to working with them to bring more fans closer to the game in unique ways.”