How Mets marketing capitalizes on viral moments: “You can’t make this stuff up”

NEW YORK – The Mets may be the league with the most viral moments.

It started on Opening Day with the club's most experienced player, a World War II veteran with the unforgettable name of Seymour Weiner. The Mets' turnaround to start the summer coincided with – or was sparked by – the first pitch thrown by McDonald's character Grimace. When the Mets got on offense, they found their song of the summer: “OMG,” by veteran infielder José Iglesias. (The song is so popular in New York that it was mocked by the other team's bench earlier this week.)

The Mets have already brought Weiner back for a hot dog promotion. On Saturday, they will hand out “OMG” T-shirts to the first 15,000 fans. On Tuesday, there will be a special ticket with an “OMG” foam finger.

How does a major league franchise decide how to capitalize on its online fame? How does it decide what will resonate with its fan base and how to exploit its advantages in a tasteful way—one that is fun without being annoying?

As the Mets' executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Andy Goldberg is the man entrusted with making such decisions. Last week, I spoke with Goldberg, who is serving in the position for the third time and was instrumental in the design of the Mets' City Connect jerseys introduced this season, about what an “extraordinary” season this has been for the club and what separates one viral moment from another.

This interview was conducted last Thursday. The athlete This Thursday, we reached out to the club again to ask about their latest marketing ploy, which involved having Haliey Welch (better known as Hawk Tuah Girl) throw out the first pitch. We have not yet received a response, but will update this story if we do.

The interview has been slightly edited and shortened:

How do you react when you see something blow up, be it Seymour Weiner earlier this year or Grimace throwing out the first pitch?

Both are very different and great examples. Seymour Weiner, veteran of the opening day game, had not escaped our notice. He admitted that he had heard every joke in the book. After it started, we reached out again and brought up the idea of ​​a Dollar Dog Night and asked him if he would be interested in participating. They were excited. If it hadn't been well received, we probably wouldn't have used him because it wouldn't have made sense. But our fan base had a lot of fun with it, so we got involved a little bit.

With Grimace, we had two people on our team who are just huge fans of Grimace. I can't explain that. We reached out because we knew McDonald's was celebrating Grimace's birthday in June to get him to do an initial pitch. If we hadn't gone on the winning streak right after that, I don't know how Grimace would have taken off. But it worked, and we really left that up to the fans. It was only after fans had fully embraced it for several weeks that we started to dabble in it, and then we brought Grimace back for a cameo on Pride Night. And then we worked with McDonald's to incorporate him into our planned release video. It was intentionally a light touch.

Fans credited Grimace's performance with a midseason turnaround, so the Mets quickly brought him back for a sequel. (Pamela Smith / Associated Press)

How much do you as a department check what the fans think? Is that a specific task for someone?

That's not the job of one person, quite frankly. It's the job of the whole marketing team to pay very close attention to what's happening in the market, what our fans are talking about – not necessarily related to performance on the field, but things that capture their imagination.

There have been a few this year that have captured the imagination of our fans. We like to let it breathe – or as someone on my team said, we like the internet on the internet. That helps make those moments really resonate with the fans; they have to own it and feel ownership of it and they have to love it.

Grimace is a trademarked character of another company. How different is the attempt to integrate that compared to José Iglesias' “OMG” song?

Absolutely, and every company is different. We were really lucky that McDonald's was excited about it. That helps. If we as a brand had staged everything, I don't think it would have captured the imagination of fans the way we would hope and, more importantly, it wouldn't have captured the imagination of the other companies. That was the beauty of it. It was organic. It was naturally viral, not forced.

And then “OMG,” the players were chanting because it was their own song. They asked us to play that as their home run song before it was released. They were chanting, and we wanted to elevate one of our players and give him the platform to deliver an incredibly catchy song that is the “song of the summer” for us. Having him perform on the field after a win was a big moment that we orchestrated – but only after we allowed the players to chant it. A fan made that sign. We did not make that sign. A fan made that sign for the players.

You have to look at it this way: “OMG” is part of the team experience; they have the sign, they play the song. Grimace is much more of the fan experience.

We rush into these things, but very strategically, after they've seen it. When we do, I think it feels forced and inauthentic.

Right, how hard would you ever try to create such a moment, or do you have to sit back and wait for it to happen on its own?

99 percent of the time, they have to come about on their own. When we try to create a moment, it's more intentional as part of a specific campaign we want to run, and that's very different from things like that. For example, we launched a back-to-school promotion and an all-access pass for the homestand.

These are very targeted campaigns that are designed to make a difference. Rather, they are designed to capture the imagination and convey the idea that anyone who wants to be part of our family is ready to do so.

The Mets always have something unique and different that the fans capture. They've been really fun and enjoyable for the fans this year, and that allows us to get into that a little bit.

You've talked about the balance between giving it space and going overboard. How do you make sure you don't alienate a traditional fan who doesn't care about these things?

It's a fine line. You don't want to tell them what they want to hear. A lot of the traditional fans see all this and know it's happening. Whether they're happy with it or not, I like to think it's happening in the background – that it's more for the fringe fan or the fan who wants to have a good time.

The traditional fan goes along with it and if they win because of Grimace, who cares? They win. Whether they like it or not, it doesn't matter if they win or if it helps the team and makes them feel good. The players say the same thing. If you ask them about Grimace, they say, “It doesn't matter. If people like it, great.”

If you decide to do something with “OMG,” how much time do you have to get it out?

Honestly, we waited a bit because we wanted to see how we did in July. We decided to go for it in mid-July. We met with José and worked with his team. A t-shirt and a foam finger are done quickly, anything more complex takes months. We wanted to do it in August when the moment is still fresh. What if we get to September and the song is no longer interesting or there's something new to latch onto? It's about capturing the moment in that time frame and figuring out what we can execute fast enough without looking back. That's hard. Traversing that fine line of getting it done in a reasonable time frame and having something valuable for the fan instead of a bobblehead next year is over by then.

Do you have anything else planned for the last two months or are you just waiting to see what happens?

If something magical happens, we're going to take advantage of it. This year has been extraordinary, from Seymour Weiner to Grimace to “OMG” — you can't make this stuff up. Baseball is unique in that way. If something else comes along, we'll definitely pay attention. The “OMG” thing, we'll keep taking advantage of it. From here on out, we're going to keep playing good baseball and bring it home.

(Top photo of Pete Alonso and Jose Iglesias: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)