Wawa, PA--A year ago, six Wawa executives sat in a sun-drenched conference room inside the convenience store's headquarters and pondered a very risky move for the privately owned company. Only weeks before, the ambitious marketing department presented to the executives the idea of advertising Wawa at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
"I remembered reading an article in the New York Times about how the World Cup has billions of viewers over the course of the tournament," said Sally Hollins, a Wawa marketing representative. "I remember thinking, 'That many people like soccer? Isn't that the one where you can't use your hands?' With viewership like that, we should advertise there."
Five of the six big wigs that day were thoroughly impressed with the idea of international exposure, which was enough for approval. "Wawa is a Mid-Atlantic convenience and gasoline store," said board member Reese Johnson, sitting, arms folded, with a ham and turkey shorti hoagie before him. "We don't operate internationally. These ads were, for the most part, directed at people who don't even have access to Wawa's. They couldn't shop there even if they wanted to. I was adamant that advertising at the World Cup was not fiscally wise. Let's expand in the U.S. before overseas."
The company paid $57 million to have a midfield, sideline electronic billboard advertisement appear during each of the 64 globally televised matches played all across South Africa's packed stadiums. During the final match alone, between Spain and the Netherlands, the Wawa ad was seen by an estimated 750 million people worldwide.
"After we sent the order form in, along with the $57 million check, we get a call from the marketing organizers in South Africa asking who we were and what our company did," laughed Ron Dempster, Wawa's head of marketing. "They had no idea who we were. The guy didn't even know what a hoagie was. I had to spell hoagie for him. But, damn it, I told him the whole world will soon know what a hoagie is. By God, if it's the last thing I do, the world will know what a hoagie is."
Wawa currently operates hundreds of stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. With the massive-scale exposure that the World Cup provides, the company was forging plans to open a food-only store in Durban, South Africa and a yet-to-be-determined site in Ghana.
"The World Cup only occurs every 3 or 4 years," said Dempster. "This was a golden opportunity for Wawa. I feel like we can now set our sights on big markets, such as Paris, London or Berlin to open our first international store that serves gas. Europeans love their cars, I would say, even more so than Americans. There is a love affair with big, oversized cars on that continent."
Wawa has been aggressively closing its stores that do not sell gasoline, usually located in cities or towns where space is limited, in favor of wide open suburbia, where some mega-stores offer parking for fifty or more cars and feature 40 fuel pumps.
Marketing directors for the World Cup, based in Johannesburg, reported little outside interest in the convenience store company as the ads appeared at the edge of the pitch through group play. This changed dramatically, however, once the elimination round commenced.
"The phone didn't stop ringing during the round of 16," said Scott Van Silj, the South African director of marketing for FIFA, about Wawa inquiries. "People wanted to know what Wawa was. What did they do? Did they have a field office in Mumbai? Do they deliver whatever they make or do to Bolivia? What language was Wawa? How do you spell Wawa? Do they design buildings? Did you say hoagie? The Wawa website has been blocked in my county, what can I do?"
Before the ads began showing in South Africa, most of the company's higher-ups felt this campaign would be the best thing for the business since touch screen ordering arrived in 1999. "Perhaps that $57 million could have been better utilized. Like, maybe, reintroducing mini Pizza Huts and Taco Bells into all of our stores," said one anonymous store manager.
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