By
Mary Vanac
How much is a Tournament of Roses sponsorship worth to a company? Scotts Miracle-Gro is about to
find out.
The lawn-and-garden product-maker in Marysville recently struck a three-year sponsorship with
the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, Calif., as its “Official Rose and Flower Care Partner.”
As part of the deal, Scotts is the only Ohio-based company to sponsor a float in the
tournament’s New Year’s Day parade.
“We look at this as a combination of two really great American brands united in a common effort
around growing things and roses,” said Tom McLoughlin, vice president of gardens and landscaping
for the Scotts Miracle-Gro brand.
Pairing the company with the tournament seems natural — Miracle-Gro fertilizers and other
products help roses to grow.
“We feel like it’s an absolute perfect fit,” said Sally Bixby, this year’s tournament president.
“We’re highlighting floats decorated in flowers and seeds and natural elements, and Scotts products
support that.”
Scotts also is presenting sponsor of the post parade — the two-day, mile-long lineup of parade
floats that some 400,000 people pay to see. This sponsorship gives Scotts an opportunity to reach
thousands of consumers in a relevant way, McLoughlin said.
The Scotts float, called “Everyone Grows,” features butterfly-topped trees, a greenhouse,
topiaries, gardens, wheelbarrows and watering cans — all things associated with the Miracle-Gro
brand.
It will be decorated with 7,000 giant oncidium orchids, 3,000 James Storie and Vanda orchids,
and nearly 30,000 roses, and will weigh 22 tons when fully dressed (half the weight comes from the
flowers).
And it will take two people — one to drive and the other to observe — to steer the float an
average 2.5 mph down the 5.5-mile parade route. The observer, the “eyes” of the float, communicates
with the driver through an intercom.
Scotts will recycle the float’s materials, composting everything from flowers to mulch, and then
sell the resulting soil to customers, McLoughlin said.
How much will the float cost to build? Scotts is mum on that, but the Tournament of Roses says
float prices start at $250,000. The tournament also charges corporations a $15,000 participation
fee.
The float-building process began months ago.
“A group of us went to Pasadena a few months back to meet with a small contingent of approved
float builders,” McLoughlin said. After presentations, Scotts chose Fiesta Parade Floats to design
and build its float.
“We’ve created the greenhouse machine,” said Tim Estes, president of Fiesta Parade Floats,
describing the float.
“At the back of the float is a conveyer belt that feeds empty pots into the greenhouse machine,”
Estes said. “Coming out the front on another conveyor belt are pots with large flowers in them.”
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The float is a kind of Rube Goldberg machine, “so there are a lot of spinning wheels and moving
parts, and there’s the gimmick of creating flowers,” Estes said.
Fiesta workers have been emailing photos and videos to Scotts to inform the company about their
progress. A few weeks ago, Fiesta workers took the bare, 10-wheeled float frame out for a test
drive to make sure it would negotiate the turns in the parade route.
It takes about 9,000 volunteer hours to build each float, said Keri Butler, former Scotts
public-relations director, who recently left the company.
The flowers arrive today, and on Thursday, some 60 Scotts workers from the company’s Encino and
Temecula, Calif., operations are expected to volunteer to work on the float, Butler said.
Throughout the year, Scotts also will sponsor Miracle-Gro gardens in community parks and use its
products to refurbish gardens in Pasadena.
“This opens up our brand to a bunch of new people and gives them a way to think of Miracle-Gro
as supporting something they’re passionate about and being part of the community,” McLoughlin
said.
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