SkipTheDishes takes its Olympic support to a new level

SkipTheDishes is once again synching up its creative with people’s love of sports, with the food deliverer urging viewers not to miss Olympic moments. 

Skip is partnering with five big-name athletes ahead of the Games, including snowboarder Mark McMorris, who in one spot breaks the fourth wall of an Olympic broadcast to ask a struggling home cook if she’d rather watch him do an impressive maneuver in his next run, or risk missing out on it as she struggles her way through a soup recipe.

Other spots feature Team Canada athletes Marie-Philip Poulin (hockey), Vanessa James and Eric Radford (figure skating) and Alex Massie (para-snowboard).

Skip signed on as the Official Food Delivery App of the Canadian Olympic Committee and Team Canada just prior to the start of the Tokyo Olympics last year, extending its association with sports, which has also included NHL sponsorships and campaigns built around winning the pre-game moment.

“Food and sports are enjoyed simultaneously so we were really leaning into that insight with the Winter Games as well,” says Cheryl Radisa, VP of marketing at SkipTheDishes, who says the campaign is about encouraging people to skip the kitchen work and food prep so they can focus on the Games.

Radisa tells strategy the Winter Games are a chance to target a wide demographic swath, although with some of the channel choices, she says it’s also going after its core with TikTok and SnapChat.

This campaign also represents an escalation of Skip’s Olympic marketing compared to Tokyo, when the sponsorship was still fresh. Radisa says one learning Skip did take from Tokyo, however, was the importance to be across media platforms and consider the impact of different time zones on each channel, as people watch events and highlights at their leisure, or update themselves on medal counts.

The campaign will run across broadcast, with a strong YouTube presence, as well as social channels and in-app integration.

Creative was done by Skip’s internal team, with support from Wasserman on athlete partnerships, UM on media and Pomp & Circumstance on PR. According to Radisa, the internal studio was enlisted for creative due to flexibility the brand needed for the campaign.