If you’re wondering why brands were willing to shell out $8 million (a record high) for a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl LIX, look no further than the impact simply being included in one has had on Fort Worth, Texas-based supplier Bison Coolers (PPAI 697899, Standard-Plus).
The family business was part of Google’s “50 States, 50 Stories” campaign, which highlighted how small business owners use Google Workspace and its AI tools.
- The commercial, which featured family members, friends and some of Bison Coolers’ 14 employees, explained that the firm relies upon the technology to write product descriptions for its website.
The company held a watch party for the Super Bowl and the energy in the room when the ad aired was “pretty incredible,” according to Jeremy Denson, co-owner and president of Bison Coolers.
“It was just a great opportunity for [Google] to really put us on the map and create some awareness,” Denson says.
An Uptick in Engagement
In the week since the commercial aired, Bison Coolers has seen a rise in engagement and inquiries, Denson says.
Check out these metrics:
- Almost a 400% increase in web traffic
- E-commerce sales have doubled
- Amazon engagement is up about 1,600%
- An increase of 800 social media followers in the 24 hours following the ad airing
“The number of calls and emails coming in has certainly increased,” Denson says. “But overall, selling a premium product in the space, much less an outdoor product in the fourth quarter, is a bit of a challenge every year. We feel like we’ve kicked off enough relationships and got enough traffic to the website that we’ll be able to remarket them in the future, and that when warm weather rolls around in a month or two, hopefully, we’ll see a nice uptick from this so we can piggyback on it the rest of the year.”
Jeremy Denson
Co-owner & President, Bison Coolers
Embracing The Great Outdoors
Bison Coolers was founded by Jeremy and his father Dennis Denson in 2011 after the former found out his wife, who was working as a teacher at the time, was pregnant. In order to offset the lost income, Jeremy decided to take on a side hustle.
“I love the outdoors and thought I should do something that I’m passionate about and enjoy myself,” he says. “So, as I started to dive into the outdoor space, I started looking at coolers, and I was like, wait, I think there’s a market here.”
The duo hit the ground running, selling a multitude of different coolers for various needs.
“Being one of the few family-owned cooler companies still in America, we’re kind of the last of a dying breed,” Denson says. “We’re taking on people that are making more in marketing in a given month or two than we do annually. So, that part is a big challenge, but it’s really rewarding to see that we’ve weathered the storm.”
Denson “stumbled” into the promo space about seven years ago when he and his team noticed a handful of customers were continuously ordering large batches of products from the company. After asking why, Denson learned about the promotional products world, discovering that these customers were applying their logos to his coolers.
Since then, the promo industry has become Bison Coolers’ biggest source of revenue.
“We’ve just been doubling down, pouring more resources into it and expanding our decorating capabilities,” Denson says. “Without that customer feedback, we never would have even discovered the space.”
