Travis Kelce Effect Rewrites Playbook for NFL Kickoff Ads

Travis Kelce and manager Aaron Eanes had a plan for 2023 to bring on a bunch of brand partners, showcase his abilities as a pitchman, and prove that brands were better off having him on their team.

Taylor Swift, a third Super Bowl title for his Kansas City Chiefs, and an ever-expanding audience for his New Heights podcast co-hosted by his recently retired NFL veteran brother Jason weren’t even in Kelce and Eanes’ playbook at the time.

“You’re kind of always reevaluating what’s going on with a brand, with your clients, and everything,” said Eanes, who serves as president of A&A Management group and, along with his brother André, have known Kelce since he was at the University of Cincinnati more than a decade ago. “Especially when, in Travis’s case, there’s been so many different evolutions.”

The plan for 2023 worked, evolutions and all. According to television data and analytics firm EDO, Kelce’s ads for Campbell’s, DirecTV, and Pfizer in 2023 were 15%, 24%, and 27% more effective, respectively, than those brands’ ads without him. After his relationship with Swift went public, Kelce’s ads with Pfizer and Experian were 9% and 13% more effective when they were featured during a game in which Swift made an appearance.

While the Taylor Swift Effect took most of the credit, EDO noted that Kelce helped hold fans’ attention during Swift-attended Chiefs games that were 13% more effective for advertisers despite audiences that were 16% less engaged.

“She’s a phenomenon that transcends everything, but Kelce has done an amazing job of turning that into standalone stardom,” said Kevin Krim, CEO of EDO.

Since winning his third Super Bowl title with the Chiefs in February, Kelce has hosted Saturday Night Live, overseen a 20-episode run of Amazon Prime Video’s Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity?, and, after just its second season, sold his podcast’s ad-sales, merchandising, and domestic and international distribution rights to Amazon-owned Wondery for a reported $100 million.

“The Kelce brothers are football superstars that have transcended the sport to become global icons. New Heights sits at the intersection of sports and entertainment,” said Angie More, Wondery’s head of ad revenue. “It’s more than a podcast—it’s a cultural phenomenon.”

This NFL season, Kelce and Eanes have narrowed their list of brand partners, focused on opportunities in entertainment, and looked ahead to 2025 and 2026.

For Kelce’s three NFL Kickoff partners—General Mills, Lowe’s, and Pepsi—and those looking to partner with the 11-year NFL veteran and his management team in the future, accommodating his tastes in cereal and soda, his commitment to community, and his increasingly packed schedule can secure his place on a brand’s roster.

“If he’s doing live events, if he’s going to be on camera out of town, if he’s a business owner himself, if he’s doing stuff in the community, how do we talk to brands in a more holistic way, so that all the stuff a brand wants to do and is doing is aligned in the areas he’s aligned with?” Eanes said. “How do we bring those together so that [brands] get more value; we generate better and more engaging, authentic conversations and content; and then, ultimately, you’d have more of a true and great partnership versus a one-off?”

The long game

Pepsi has sponsored the NFL for more than 20 years but first linked up with Kelce in 2017 during his fifth year in the league and just after his first All-Pro season with the Chiefs. 

Since then, the company has worked with Kelce on a number of projects both in Kansas City and nationally, focusing on his podcast-professed love of Wild Cherry Pepsi earlier this year and teaming with Joe’s KC Bar-B-Que on a Kelce-inspired combo meal. 

“With Wild Cherry Pepsi, he’s always talking about it, and it comes down to authenticity: Does this brand, this product, this service actually fit in his life?” Eanes said. “The customer is smart—they can tell if you don’t use something—so if we lean on the authenticity angle, we’re going to be in a better position.”

But Pepsi hadn’t worked with Kelce on a major commercial campaign before it cast him in a remake of its Gladiator-themed Super Bowl spot from 2004 featuring Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Pink, and Enrique Iglesias. The new “Make Your Gameday Epic” kickoff spot—produced by Ridley Scott Associates, Paramount Brand Studio, and directed by Jake Scott in collaboration with Paramount Pictures—promotes Paramount’s upcoming film Gladiator II while throwing Kelce into the mix with his NFL colleagues Josh Allen, Justin Jefferson, and Derrick Henry, as well as Megan Thee Stallion.

“Travis’s inclusion in this iconic commercial further solidifies his status as a pop culture figure beyond football, showcasing his versatility and appeal to a wide audience,” said Melissa Duhaime, PepsiCo’s director of sports marketing.

Meanwhile, Lowe’s first introduced Kelce as a member of its Lowe’s Home Team in 2021 alongside fellow NFL stars Christian McCaffrey and Kelvin Beachum to help prod homeowners into home improvement projects. As Kelce’s public profile increased, the brand gave him more room to ad-lib in his segments; it also invested in his New Heights podcast before the NFL Draft in Kansas City in 2023. Kelce’s Super Bowl 58 appearance then allowed Lowe’s to use his likeness for its Super Bowl Deal Days promotions.

Once the brand that was responsible for Kelce’s first seven-figure endorsement deal, according to Eanes, Lowe’s has also followed Kelce from making home improvements to helping contractors work on his multiple houses.

“It is a metaphor for the lifecycle journey of our customer,” said Jennifer Wilson, CMO of Lowe’s. “Travis is intended to embody our customer, and they may start off as renters or first-time homeowners, where they’re buying smaller things along the way, and then they might take on a big project, then they might move into their second home, or buy a second or third home, and that relationship matures and grows.”

It’s helped that Lowe’s, like Pepsi, is a friend of the family. Lowe’s first signed on as an NFL sponsor in 2019 and knows its way around football players at various points in their professional careers—adding the Houston Texans’ C.J. Stroud and the New England Patriots’ Drake Maye to their Home Team this year. Also, like Pepsi, the company knows how to make time for increasingly popular athletes when they have less of it to give.

“For Lowe’s and Pepsi, as an NFL player, you still want to respect the brands that respect you and the league,” Eanes said. “Lowe’s and Pepsi are brands that have amazing teams that work with them and have amazing people within those organizations that have basically bent over backward to make sure that Travis can be in their campaigns, make it easy for him, and also genuinely fill a need.”

Knowing your teammates

Kelce and Eanes’ more personalized approach to partnerships means there’s still room in the huddle for brands willing to get to know them better.

As the director of brand experience and morning foods for General Mills, part of Mindy Murray’s job—and that of her teammates and agency partners—is to know how much people are obsessing about Count Chocula and Cookie Crisp, among other brands.

Back in December, when Kelce and his brother ranked their favorite cereals on the podcast and included Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and Reese’s Puffs in their Top 3, Murray’s team made some calls and had a pitch for the Kelces: How would you like your own cereal?

Travis and Jason blended their Top 3 together into Kelce Mix and, in May, filmed a “Cereal Training Camp” multi-part campaign pitting them against children in physical challenges for the right to place their dream cereal on shelves. General Mills set up worlds around each brand, and the brothers showed “equal enthusiasm and a lot of it,” which is of utmost importance to a company whose first rule for endorsers is that they actually have to like the cereal.

“We’re really lucky that we have a wealth of mascots, from Lucky the Leprechaun to Buzz the Bee to the Cinnamoji,” Murray said. “Because, honestly, you put the Kelce brothers and a bunch of cereal mascots together on a set, and you almost can just back away and say, ‘Do your thing.’”

To Murray, it was a marked change from the influencer marketing she saw earlier in her career when companies sought “the person with the biggest reach or the person that has the coolest Instagram feed.” As General Mills and other brands seek more intimate connections with their partners and consumers hold a low tolerance for hollow endorsements, Kelce and his team can judge each brand on increasingly personal merits.

With Lowe’s, for example, Kelce’s 87 & Running Foundation built a new learning space, Ignition Lab, in Kansas City to teach kids skills in coding, circuitry, culinary arts, construction and design, digital media, robotics, and visual art. In 2022, Lowe’s and Kelce renovated InterUrban Arthouse’s Overland Park events space. Last year, with help from the NFL, Lowe’s and Kelce helped the Kansas City Community Gardens build a new shed and install new fencing during Tomato Days. 

“He has never pivoted,” Lowe’s Wilson said. “In fact, he’s only asked us, ‘How can I do more with you?’”

Through the various facets of his public image, Kelce has created different ways for both brands and fans to approach him. That’s allowed Kelce and Eanes to treat Kelce’s work with the league, the Chiefs, his podcast, his entertainment gigs, his foundation in Kansas City, and his Kelce Jam music festival as different entities appealing to people who may never see him in another capacity.

“There’s a lot of ways that you can get a benefit by association, but when it actually comes to him really aligning with something, engaging with it, diving deep on it, and being a spokesperson or partner, it’s about how does this product, service, person, or thing fit in my life, do I believe in it, can I see myself adding value, and do we have the same overall objectives and goals so that we can impact whatever area we’re trying to impact together?” Eanes said.

“The benefit of having those different touch points is you don’t have to do a break to have a lot of exposure.”