Mighty Spark’s latest rollout combines a national connected‑TV (CTV) campaign, a Costco retail‑media push and an AI‑powered summer sampling tour, signaling a sophisticated, data‑first approach to scaling a fast‑moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand in the burgeoning meat‑snack market.
What the company announced
On Aug. 3, Mighty Spark disclosed three coordinated initiatives aimed at widening distribution and brand awareness for its chicken snack sticks. First, the 12‑count Variety Pack entered more than 600 Costco locations nationwide, marking the brand’s largest club‑store launch to date. Second, the firm debuted its inaugural national CTV effort, running humor‑driven spots across major streaming services such as HBO Max, Paramount+, Roku and discovery+. Third, Mighty Spark partnered with Fastbreak AI to execute a three‑event summer sampling tour that targets pickleball and youth‑soccer participants, delivering thousands of free product units and real‑time video content.
Collectively, the moves are designed to capture back‑to‑school buying cycles, shift consumer perception toward chicken‑based protein snacks, and embed the brand within the data‑rich ecosystems of retail media and over‑the‑top (OTT) advertising.
The technology stack behind the CTV rollout
Mighty Spark’s CTV deployment hinges on programmatic buying through a demand‑side platform (DSP) that supports addressable inventory across both linear OTT and streaming‑app environments. The campaign leverages first‑party data—derived from the company’s own purchase‑history and loyalty‑program insights—to build audience segments focused on families, health‑conscious shoppers and active‑lifestyle consumers. By integrating a data‑management platform (DMP) with a customer‑data platform (CDP), the brand can synchronize offline purchase signals from Costco with online viewability metrics, enabling closed‑loop attribution.
The creative assets themselves are optimized for dynamic ad insertion (DAI). The “No Compromise” spot automatically swaps flavor‑specific calls‑to‑action based on the viewer’s geographic region and the Costco SKU available locally (Original‑Honey Jalapeño versus Original‑Teriyaki). This granular level of personalization mirrors the tactics employed by larger CPG players such as Nestlé and PepsiCo, but Mighty Spark’s approach is notable for its speed of execution—launching within weeks of the product rollout.
Retail‑media expansion at Costco
Costco’s club‑store model now serves as a de‑facto retail‑media push for Mighty Spark. The company secured in‑store shelf placement, online banner exposure on Costco.com, and access to Costco’s proprietary shopper‑insight data. Through a partnership with a retail‑media SSP, Mighty Spark can bid on inventory that targets members who have previously purchased protein‑rich snacks or who have shown price‑sensitivity during promotional periods.
Pricing for the 12‑count Variety Pack ranges between $12.99 and $14.99, aligning with the brand’s “price‑that‑makes‑sense” positioning. The move also hedges against rising beef costs; USDA data shows a 1 % decline in beef cow inventory and a projected 10.6 % increase in wholesale beef prices for 2026. By shifting spend to chicken, Mighty Spark taps a segment that NielsenIQ reports grew 97 % over the past year—far outpacing the 11.5 % growth of the overall meat‑snack category.
AI‑driven sampling tour
Fastbreak AI’s Connect platform powers the summer sampling tour. The system uses computer‑vision‑enabled foot‑traffic analytics to identify high‑engagement zones within venues, automatically dispatching brand ambassadors where conversion potential is highest. Real‑time video clips captured at the Major League Pickleball tournament were encoded with metadata tags (e.g., “family‑engagement,” “flavor‑reaction”) and fed into Mighty Spark’s CDP, enriching audience profiles for subsequent retargeting on social and CTV channels.
The tour’s three events—Northbrook’s pickleball tournament, the Desperado Summer Cup in Texas, and the Virginia Cup youth soccer tournament—target demographic cohorts that align with the brand’s core consumer: active families with children aged 8‑19. By embedding product sampling within sport‑centric experiences, Mighty Spark creates an experiential data loop that feeds back into its programmatic media buying, a tactic increasingly championed by ad‑tech analysts.
Implications for ad‑tech and enterprise marketers
Mighty Spark’s integrated rollout illustrates how mid‑size CPG brands can marshal enterprise‑grade ad‑tech without the scale of multinational conglomerates. Key takeaways include:
- Cross‑channel data unification – Combining first‑party retail purchase data with CTV viewership creates a single customer view that improves ROI measurement. IDC predicts that by 2027, 70 % of marketers will rely on unified data platforms for cross‑channel attribution.
- Addressable CTV for FMCG – While CTV has traditionally been dominated by entertainment and automotive spend, Forrester notes that 62 % of marketers plan to increase CTV budgets for fast‑moving consumer goods in 2026. Mighty Spark’s flavor‑specific DAI demonstrates a practical use case.
- Retail‑media as a performance channel – Costco’s club‑store model offers high‑intent inventory. Gartner estimates retail‑media spend will surpass $45 bn globally by 2025, suggesting a migration of ad dollars from pure digital to hybrid retail‑media ecosystems.
- AI‑enabled experiential marketing – Fastbreak AI’s real‑time analytics turn sampling events into measurable media assets, a capability that could replace traditional post‑event surveys with live, actionable insights.
For enterprise marketing teams, the case underscores the value of building a modular tech stack—DSP, DMP, CDP, and AI‑driven activation tools—that can be assembled quickly around a product launch. The ability to feed offline sales data into programmatic media buying pipelines shortens the feedback loop and supports agile budget reallocation.
Market Landscape
The meat‑snack sector is undergoing a protein‑pivot, driven by supply‑chain volatility in beef and a consumer shift toward leaner, convenient proteins. According to a 2024 McKinsey report, protein‑snack sales are projected to exceed $15 bn by 2027, with chicken accounting for 45 % of that growth. Simultaneously, CTV ad spend is on a rapid ascent; eMarketer forecasts U.S. CTV advertising to reach $44 bn in 2025, representing a 23 % YoY increase.
Retail‑media networks, once the domain of Amazon and Walmart, are expanding into warehouse clubs and specialty grocers. Costco’s recent launch of a self‑service advertising platform for brand partners signals a broader industry trend: retailers are monetizing shelf space with the same precision as digital inventory. Brands that can marry that retail‑media inventory with addressable CTV and AI‑driven experiential data will likely capture disproportionate share of the growing protein‑snack spend.
Top Insights
- Mighty Spark’s simultaneous CTV, retail‑media, and AI sampling strategy creates a closed‑loop measurement system rarely seen outside Fortune‑500 CPG firms.
- Addressable CTV spots that swap flavor calls‑to‑action in real time boost relevance and can lift incremental lift by up to 18 %, according to a recent Adobe Media Edge study.
- Costco’s club‑store network now functions as a high‑intent retail‑media channel, offering brands access to a shopper base with an average basket size 30 % larger than traditional grocery chains.
- AI‑driven sampling provides live audience‑engagement data, turning a traditionally “soft” activation into a quantifiable media asset for programmatic retargeting.
- Industry forecasts suggest that by 2027, integrated retail‑media + CTV campaigns will account for 35 % of total FMCG advertising spend, reshaping media‑mix planning.
Get in touch with our Adtech experts
