Quaker Oats enlisted Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, and Jerome Bettis for its 2021 Good Call campaign, blending NFL sponsorship with heart-healthy breakfast messaging
Quaker Oats Calls in the NFL Legends for a Wholesome Good Call
Quaker Oats launched its "Good Call" campaign in the United States in October 2021, a film and TV spot created by agency Mekanism that positions the brand's oatmeal as a wholesome, heart-healthy breakfast choice endorsed by former NFL greats Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, and Jerome Bettis — framing the everyday decision to eat oatmeal as "always a good call."
The campaign draws directly on Quaker's standing as the Official Oatmeal Sponsor of the NFL, a platform that allows the brand to speak simultaneously to sports-minded adults and family-oriented households across the US market. The central creative device is a family of referees who deliberate, flag, and ultimately rule that Quaker Oats is, by every available measure, a good call. The three NFL legends appear as authoritative validators of that verdict, lending athletic credibility to a brand whose heritage spans more than 140 years, according to Quaker's own historical record. The spot was published on October 18, 2021, anchoring the campaign to the heart of the NFL regular season, when football-adjacent messaging commands some of its highest audience attention in the United States.
Quaker Oats is owned by PepsiCo, which acquired The Quaker Oats Company in 2001, per PepsiCo's corporate history. The campaign carries a dual mandate: reinforcing brand trust through humor and wholesome family imagery while advancing a documented health claim — that three grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal consumed daily, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease, as stated in Quaker's own product disclosure. Each serving of the featured product contains two grams of that soluble fiber. The Clapboard Score for "Good Call" is 60 out of 100, reflecting competent execution of a well-established sponsorship platform with room for deeper creative differentiation.
Quaker Oats enters the "Good Call" campaign carrying a specific strategic advantage. The brand holds official NFL sponsorship status, a designation that transforms what could be a generic celebrity endorsement into a structurally coherent brand story — one where the language of officiating, good decisions, and trusted judgment maps directly onto the act of choosing a breakfast food for one's family in the United States.
The US oatmeal and broader oats category was growing meaningfully at the time of the campaign's launch. The global oats market was valued at approximately US$6.16 billion in 2021, up from US$5.62 billion in 2020, representing roughly 9.5% year-on-year growth, according to Ken Research. North America accounted for more than 40% of that global market in 2021 estimates, per Grand View Research, making the US the single most important geography for any oatmeal brand seeking scale. Against this backdrop, Quaker faces direct competitive pressure from General Mills — whose brands include Cheerios and Nature Valley oat-based products — as well as from Bob's Red Mill, which has cultivated a loyal following among health-conscious consumers seeking less processed alternatives. These competitors have invested in their own wellness and clean-label narratives, making Quaker's move to combine NFL mass-market reach with substantiated heart-health claims a deliberate effort to occupy a middle ground: approachable enough for a mainstream family, credible enough for a health-motivated shopper.
Kristin Kroepfl, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Quaker North America at PepsiCo, articulated the strategy directly, stating that the brand is "passionate about helping people in need get more access to nourishing foods," per PR Newswire. That framing connects the campaign to Quaker's partnership with Feeding America, adding a philanthropic layer to the football-and-family creative platform and broadening the brand's relevance beyond the breakfast aisle.
The "Good Call" TV spot constructs its humor around an extended metaphor. A family of referees — parents, children, all in officiating gear — convenes to evaluate Quaker Oats with the same procedural gravity they would apply to a disputed play on the field. The verdict is unanimous and theatrical: Quaker Oats is always a good call. Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, and Jerome Bettis appear as the kind of living proof that no reasonable person would contest, their NFL careers serving as implicit evidence that good decisions, made consistently over time, produce great outcomes.
The spot was created by Mekanism, the San Francisco-based independent agency known for blending humor with purposeful brand storytelling. Kristin Kroepfl, speaking to the creative partnership per Brand Innovators, described the campaign as created in partnership with Mekanism, framing it as an extension of Quaker's ongoing effort to make nutritional messaging feel warm and accessible rather than clinical. The use of football officiating language — the signal, the ruling, the finality of the call — gives the creative a structural wit that separates it from straightforward celebrity endorsement formats. The family-of-referees device works because it domesticates the authority of officiating: these are not strangers passing judgment, but a household making a shared decision, which mirrors exactly the purchase behavior Quaker is trying to influence.
The campaign exists as a single film asset, suggesting a focused media investment centered on broadcast and digital video rather than an extended multi-format production. The heart-health disclaimer is woven into the spot's messaging with the care required by Federal Trade Commission guidelines on health claims in food advertising, ensuring the wholesome tone remains legally grounded. Production credits beyond Mekanism's agency role and Kroepfl's client leadership are not publicly documented for this campaign.
The "Good Call" campaign generated 43,240 views and 222 likes on its archived video record, with zero comments logged, according to Clapboard's archive data. These figures represent the campaign's documented digital footprint on the archive platform and do not constitute a full media performance picture, as broadcast television delivery across the United States would represent the primary reach vehicle for a campaign of this scale and sponsorship backing.
No independently verified campaign-level performance data — such as brand lift, purchase intent shift, or television gross rating points — is publicly available for "Good Call." What the structural evidence does support is that the campaign is well-configured for its objectives. Launching in October 2021, at the peak of NFL regular-season viewership in the United States, the spot reaches an audience already primed for football-adjacent brand messaging. The use of three recognizable former NFL players — each from a different era and position group — broadens demographic reach within the football audience rather than narrowing it to a single fan segment. Per Brand Innovators, the campaign's connection to Feeding America adds earned media potential that extends the campaign's effective reach beyond paid placements.
The Drum published agency profile coverage of Mekanism around this period, reflecting the agency's broader visibility in the US creative market, which lends the campaign additional industry credibility even in the absence of formal awards recognition for this specific work. The Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its strategic brief cleanly and with genuine humor, while relying on a sponsorship platform and celebrity formula that, however effective, does not push the creative boundaries of the Food and Drink category.
The Good Call campaign is a 2021 US television spot created by Mekanism for Quaker Oats. It features former NFL players Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, and Jerome Bettis alongside a family of referees who rule that choosing Quaker Oats is always a good call, reinforcing the brand's heart-healthy and wholesome positioning.
Drew Brees, Jerry Rice, and Jerome Bettis appeared in the Good Call TV spot. All three are former NFL greats whose participation was made possible by Quaker's standing as the Official Oatmeal Sponsor of the NFL, lending the campaign authentic athletic credibility within its humorous, family-oriented creative framework.
Mekanism created the Good Call campaign for Quaker Oats. The San Francisco-based independent agency developed the referee family concept and the "always a good call" platform, combining NFL sponsorship assets with wholesome humor to communicate Quaker's heart-healthy messaging to US consumers in October 2021.
The campaign references Quaker's documented heart-health claim: consuming three grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal daily, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce heart disease risk. Each serving of the featured product contains two grams of soluble fiber, as disclosed in Quaker's own product information.
The Good Call campaign received a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100. The score reflects clean, competent execution of a well-established NFL sponsorship platform delivered with genuine humor, while noting that the celebrity-plus-sponsorship formula does not significantly advance creative boundaries within the competitive US Food and Drink advertising category.
Quaker Oats partnered with Feeding America as part of the Good Call campaign's broader platform. Kristin Kroepfl, Chief Marketing Officer of Quaker North America at PepsiCo, cited the partnership publicly via PR Newswire, framing it as central to the brand's mission of increasing access to nourishing foods for people in need across the United States.
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