Johnsonville Just Made an Amazing Sausage-Themed Reality Show You Need to Watch

Here's something you never knew you needed in your life—a sausage-themed reality TV show brought to you by Johnsonville and Droga5. The three-part series, titled Sausage Dome, is similar to competition shows you might see on the Food Network (think Chopped). Instead of weird ingredients in baskets though, Sausage Dome asks contestants to make a game day-appropriate recipe using Johnsonville sausages. Each week features three competitors—most are Johnsonville enthusiasts who interact with the brand often on social media—with one winner per episode. Not only does the winner score a year's supply of sausages, but the winner's recipe will also be entered into Johnsonville's "Big Game Binder" recipe book and will be integrated into future Johnsonville print and digital campaigns. "You want to give each recipe time and a chance to be judged by the Sausage Six, but at the same time you don't want to overwhelm people with a million different recipes. We thought three was the perfect number and from those we could pick a champion and have one become an official sausage snack for the Big Game," Chris Colliton, Droga5 associate creative director, said. The best part of the show though is that six Johnsonville employees, appropriately named "The Sausage Six" for the purpose of this competition, serve as the judges. There's Bob from sanitation, Sandy the receptionist and even Jarrod the smoke house operator. The criteria to become a judge was pretty simple, too: be an employee at Johnsonville and have absolutely no judging experience. "They were great sports about it. We've got people from all different ends of our organization and watching them do it was really funny. They just kind of tasted it and said what they thought. It was no more complicated than that," Jamie Schmelzer, integrated marketing director at Johnsonville, said. The Sausage Dome series isn't the first time Johnsonville members have made an appearance in the brand's marketing either. Last year, as part of the "Made the Johnsonville Way" campaign, employees of the company helped Droga5 come up with commercial ideas, and the end results were quite funny. Droga5 wanted to continue down this path in its latest work. Each episode runs around 10 minutes long, which at first, seems a bit much. Yet, for any fan of a competition-style reality show, Sausage Dome becomes somewhat addictive. You want to know what's going to happen next week. Who wins. Who loses. Who walks away with that massive sausage link necklace. Each episode even features a dramatically cut preview for the next episode, similar to something you might see at the end of an episode of The Bachelor. While the campaign touts the Big Game, you won't see Johnsonville making an appearance during the actual game. As associate creative director Kevin Weir explained, on the day of, things are "already pretty cluttered and it's hard to get any attention." A three-part series made more sense, especially for a brand that's hoping people will purchase the product ahead of game day for any Super Bowl festivities. "From a functionality standpoint that's when people are going to need to get their recipes in order for what they are going to make for their Big Game party. It's also just tough to compete on that stage and we don't really have to. A three episode reality show doesn't necessarily belong on the day of, it belongs in the lead up," Weir added. Keep an eye out for two additional episodes of the show, which will roll out leading up to the Super Bowl on Feb. 5. CREDITS Client: Johnsonville Sausage Campaign: Sausage Dome Agency: Droga5 NY Creative Chairman: David Droga Chief Creative Officer: Ted Royer Executive Creative Director: Scott Bell Associate Creative Director: Chris Colliton Associate Creative Director: Kevin Weir Copywriter: Daniel Litzow Art Director: Max Friedman Executive Design Director: Rob Trostle Senior UX Designer: Annie Ha Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale Co-head of Broadcast Production: Jesse Brihn Co-head of Broadcast Production: Bryan Litman Executive Broadcast Producer: Amanda Revere Senior Broadcast Producer: Andrew Slough Associate Broadcast Producer: Jamil McGinnis Director of Integrated Production Business Affairs: Dianne Richter Integrated Production Business Manager: Grant Thompson Head of Interactive Production: Niklas Lindstrom Executive Interactive Producer: Tasha Cronin Interactive Producer: Alyssa Cashman Interactive Media Producer: Cylla Senii Head of Art Production: Cliff Lewis Photographer: Paul McGeiver Senior Art Producer: Emily Heller Head of Print Services: Rob Lugo Senior Print Producer: Rick Gutierrez Retoucher: Mike Vorrasi Global Chief Strategy Officer: Jonny Bauer Group Strategy Director: Aaron Wiggan Senior Strategist: Marc Iserlis Group Communications Strategy Director: Brian Nguyen Senior Communications Strategist: Kevin Wilkerson Data Strategy Director: Lily Ng Group Account Director: Julia Albu Account Director: Pat Rowley Account Supervisor: Kate Tyler Monroe Associate Account Manager: Camille Cheeks-Lomax Project Manager: Rayna Lucier Client Johnsonville Sausage Sr. Group Marketing Director Ryan Pociask Integrated Marketing Director Jamie Schmelzer Sr. Brand Manager Fully Cooked Kelly Jackson Creative Director, Brand Communications Anthony Rammer PR and Social Media Manager Stephanie Dlugopolski Shopper Marketing Manager Stephanie Plehn Digital Activation Manager Carly Nusser Production Company T Group Production Executive Producer Jenny Daly Executive Producer Rob Lobl Executive Producer Peter Woronov EVP, Production & Operations David Kelleher Executive in Charge of Production Christi DiCecco DOP Mario Panagiotopoulos Producer Jacki Pass Associate Producer Carol Gronner Art Director Michael Wiggle Production Coordinator Dave Riehm Editorial & Post Production T Group Production Co-Executive Producer Matt Pickel Director of Post Production Andrew Raley Post Production Supervisor Leslie Niazi Post Production Coordinator Brian Fetterer Editor Bogdan Bageag Editor Taylor Marr Editor Alex Nam Lead Assistant Editor Ted Fields Assistant Editor Mike Ruiz Assistant Editor Dylan Stayman Assistant Editor Jacquelyn Vrooman Assistant Editor Frank Conte Assistant Editor Josh Cordova

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Johnsonville Just Made an Amazing Sausage-Themed Reality Show You Need to Watch

Recipes worthy of the Big Game

Katie Richards

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Katie Richards