Football. Wings. And Wine?
Boxed wine brand Bota Box says yes. The brand knows that football fans may be more accustomed to drinking beer and spirits while watching a game, but Bota’s recent marketing initiatives are aimed at getting consumers to think about pairing their chicken wings with a glass of wine, said Mary Wachowicz, Brand Portfolio Director.
“Our ethos is come as you are, and football is a perfect platform to introduce wine in somewhat of a non-traditional space,” Wachowicz said.
The initiative is working, according to Bota Box, as the brand attributes $1 million in sales connected to the in-store displays showcasing the campaign during its core push period: four weeks prior to the Super Bowl.
Wing It With Bota
This year, 2026, marks the third year Bota Box has marketed itself in conjunction with football and the second year of its “Wing It With Bota” campaign. The initiative highlights how a cardboard Bota Box is a portable and shatterproof choice to bring to a tailgate, and the product pairs well with chicken wings.
“We love the connection to wings because wings can be elevated; they can be whatever you want them to be,” Wachowicz said. “Depending on the flavors, the sauces, the rubs, they pair well with our Bota Box lines.”
A main facet of the campaign is a recipe contest, which solicits consumers to produce an original chicken wing recipe and pair it with a wine. In 2025, Bota received more than 100 entries to the contest and three finalists competed at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Tailgate, which had 11,500 attendees, Wachowicz said. The winner received tickets to the Super Bowl.
For the 2026-2027 football season, Bota is again running the recipe contest. Like last year, the brand kicked off the campaign at the National Buffalo Wing Festival in Buffalo, New York, and it will announce the winner at the Flavortown Tailgate in Los Angeles, with tickets going to the Super Bowl that day, Feb. 14, 2027.
The main goal for the entire campaign, Wachowicz said, is to increase brand awareness — which currently sits around 67% — and to drive sales.
“Our No. 1 goal is to drive brand awareness completely, either through retail activation or these sampling consumer experiential opportunities,” Wachowicz said.
Sampling at College Football’s ‘The Tailgate Tour’
Bota is adding to the campaign this year and sampling its products at the 13-stop Tailgate Tour at college football games across the country, which runs through the end of November. This gives Bota more than 1.5 million consumers sampling its product in the context of where the brand aims to have consumers drink the product — at football tailgates.
“Our current consumer is older millennials and Generation X, and so we’re constantly looking for ways to bring new people in,” Wachowicz said.
The Tailgate Tour is also exciting for Bota, as this is a much larger audience than its other event activations, such as its sponsorship of the Professional Pickleball Association.
“We were very pleased last year as the first year of Wing It With Bota,” she said. “It helped solidify the fact that we wanted to invest more by going to these larger events.”
Sampling is key for Bota, as it is for many beverage brands, as it breaks down the taste barrier.
“As you can imagine, box wine, there’s still some stigma around drinking wine out of the box, and we know that when people taste Bota Box, they’ll taste our quality,” she said. “We have an extremely loyal consumer, and so we want people to taste it and taste Bota.”
Last year, Bota Box distributed 16,000 samples of its product in conjunction with the Wing It With Bota campaign: 6,000 samples at the National Buffalo Wing Festival, and 10,000 samples at Guy’s Flavortown, according to the brand.
In-Store Displays Drive Sales for Bota Box
With all of its work at events and its engagement with consumers in the real world, the ultimate aim is to have all of that translate into sales at retailers.
Bota has displays at stores promoting its contest and emphasizing the connection to Guy Fieri and football. It also has coupons to use with Flavortown Sauces, plus cards and box stickers all promoting this campaign.
“We want to drive our brand to the floor through displays and opportunities for our consumers to either purchase on shelf or through a display or end cap,” Wachowicz said. “Having this platform helps drive a differentiation amongst all the other wines out there.”
Last September and October, when it was pushing for entries to the recipe contest, 22,000 U.S. stores had Bota Box on display, such as on an end cap, on a floor stack or at checkout. This is about 40% of the stores that sell Bota Box, according to the brand. Bota’s sales team works with a distributor to merchandise its product on the retail floor.
These merchandising tactics increase the brand’s visibility and help drive sales, Wachowicz said. Bota Box’s display sales increased 11% in September and October combined, compared with the prior two months.