Hershey has extended its NCAA corporate partner agreements with CBS and Turner through '16, while signing a new deal with IMG College through '16 as well. As part of the deals with the nets, Hershey has access to marketing rights across all NCAA championships, including the continued title sponsorship of the Reese's College All-Star Game during Final Four weekend and the title sponsorship of Reese's Final Four Friday. Hershey will continue as the NCAA's official candy partner. Meanwhile, the company's deal with IMG College gives Reese's brand rights at 49 colleges and the official candy designation at each school (Hershey). SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's Michael Smith cites industry sources as saying that Hershey will "activate heavily at retail with the college marks it has acquired" in the IMG College deal. Its focus will be "mostly on in-store merchandising, with use of the schools’ logos on packaging, and radio advertising across those schools." POS material will "utilize Hershey’s new relationship with the schools in each market, giving it the ability to localize its marketing." The deal also enables Hershey "to use more than one school mark on a single product, in cases where multiple schools might be in the same market." Hershey is the "first consumer packaged goods company to sign a comprehensive deal with IMG College." UPS, MillerCoors and Hyundai were the first major brands to sign deals with IMG College last year (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 9/3 issue).
