Sheetz Crashgiving

To launch Sheetz’s Holidaze Sub, we created “Crashgiving”—a culture-jacking stunt built around the idea of crashing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
The plan: unveil two massive parade-style balloons—one shaped like the Holidaze Sub and the other like a Sheetz Freak (our lovable mascot) and crash the parade on Thanksgiving morning. With comedy influencer Ed Bassmaster as our hype man, we announced our mischievous intentions across social, teasing behind-the-scenes balloon builds and positioning the Holidaze Sub as worthy of becoming a national tradition.
The night before Thanksgiving, we filmed from across the Hudson river, inflating the balloons and declaring our parade-crashing plan. But on Thanksgiving morning, chaos ensued. The Freak balloon “escaped.” It began floating through NYC and Sheetz team posted live content of balloon sightings throughout the day. We even ran local TV commercials during coverage of the parade that masqueraded as a Breaking News update, reporting on the missing balloon
On social, we apologized for the mishap and offered the Holidaze Sub for $1, converting buzz into traffic.
And finally, the day after Thanksgiving, we revealed the Freak balloon landed safely at a Pittsburgh-area Sheetz, reframing the stunt as the world’s biggest Sheetz run.