SPARTANBURG, S.C. – It’s official – Wofford College has the “peanuttiest fans” in South Carolina, and there will be a million cans of cajun-flavored Peanut Patch brand boiled peanuts to prove it.
Three Wofford students worked as official marketing ambassadors for McCall’s Farm, a large food canning operation in Effingham, S.C., to help market the company’s boiled peanuts through a campaign to find the “Peanuttiest Fans” in the state. The project was managed at Wofford through The Space in the Mungo Center professional and entrepreneurial development center.
Students from Clemson University, the University of South Carolina, The Citadel and Coastal Carolina also participated – and the Wofford team of Karly Diltz, a senior from Westfield, Massachusetts, majoring in mathematics; Niyah Lutz, a sophomore from Charlotte, North Carolina; and Lilly Hatton, a first-year student from Georgetown, Indiana, came out ahead.
As a result, McCall Farms will print 1 million labels for cajun-flavored Peanut Patch boiled peanuts with a group photo of the Wofford project team.
“We’re so excited for the team, and so proud of the experience they had and the professionalism they showed during the project,” says Curt McPhail, executive director of The Space. “Our students received amazing job experiences that will differenitate them from others, and a South Carolina business received quality work for their project.”
Each week during the campaign, the Wofford students took photos of other students, alumni, friends and football and basketball game attendees interacting with Peanut Patch boiled peanuts – with banners or cans of the nuts. The pictures were shared on 19 digital billboards across the state for the contest. Each week, the best pictures were uploaded to a website and the public voted on their favorites.
“Week after week, Wofford continued to win the contest,” McPhail continues. “At the end of the 10-week contest, Wofford was named the winner.”