As part of the company’s broader agency evaluation process, Jack Link’s was looking for a new media partner that could deliver effective and efficient media plans. Empower was recently awarded the media business from the family-owned and -operated company. According to the Star Tribune, the meat snack category is booming. In the last year alone, dried meat snacks earned $2.8 billion in sales, a nearly 4 percent jump from the year before, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. Despite an increasing appetite for protein snacks like Jack Link’s, other snack categories such as crackers, chips and cookies still hold 99 percent of share compared to meat snacks, which weigh in at 49 percent penetration.

“Being an independent and family-owned media agency, we have a mutual respect for the grit and determination required for each other’s businesses to thrive,” Empower CEO Jim Price said. “For us it’s personal. And Empower makes media personal,” Price explained.

“Ultimately, the goal is to routinize the purchase of meat snacks, and that vision requires a media partner that truly understands channel planning within the path to purchase. We think Empower will be that partner for us,” said Tim Goldsmid, vice president of marketing for Jack Link’s Protein Snacks. “Our category leadership position was built on forward thinking and being strategically scrappy and nimble. Empower impressed us by sharing this approach to media and a demonstrated ability to generate meaningful results.”

Based in Minong, Wisconsin, Jack Link’s Protein Snacks joins Empower’s CPG portfolio of brands including Bush’s, Land O’Frost and Kroger’s Private Selection® products.