‘Make Haggis Legal Again’: How a 50-year-old food ban became one of the World Cup’s biggest talking points

Simon Howie’s campaign reached 357 million people worldwide and ended with a symbolic proclamation from the Governor of Massachusetts.

Over 50 years ago, America banned traditional haggis. This summer, Simon Howie turned one of the USA’s oldest food laws into one of the World Cup’s biggest off-pitch stories.

As Scotland returned to the World Cup for the first time in almost three decades, Scotland’s leading premium butcher Simon Howie worked with its long-term PR and marketing agency, Frame, to launch Make Haggis Legal Again – a tongue-in-cheek campaign calling for Scotland’s national dish to finally be allowed back into the USA.

Without official tournament sponsorship rights, Simon Howie created its own World Cup story. Rooted in Scottish pride, fan culture and the little-known fact that traditional haggis has been prohibited in the United States since 1971 because it contains sheep lung, the campaign gave Scotland’s travelling support something else to rally behind.

The campaign centred around a petition to Make Haggis Legal Again, supported by a hero film featuring broadcaster and football fan Gordon Smart, filmed at Glasgow Airport as members of the Tartan Army departed for the USA.
From there, the campaign took on a life of its own.

Within days, Scotland fans were demanding campaign merchandise. “NO HAGGIS. NO PARTY.” flags and “MAKE HAGGIS LEGAL AGAIN” hats became a familiar sight in airports, fan zones, pubs, television broadcasts and stadiums across Boston and Miami as fans embraced the movement as their own.
Influencers, creators and members of Scotland’s worldwide diaspora amplified the campaign across social media, helping transform this obscure piece of food legislation into a global talking point.

The campaign succeeded because it stopped being Simon Howie’s campaign and became Scotland’s…
The results spoke for themselves:
• 357.2 million audience reach
• 283 pieces of media coverage
• 526 brand mentions
• Hundreds of thousands of social media engagements
The campaign featured across television, radio, newspapers and digital media in the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia, taking Scotland’s national dish to audiences around the world.

The campaign culminated in an extraordinary moment when Scottish podcaster and campaign supporter, David McIntosh Jr successfully persuaded Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey to sign a symbolic proclamation declaring haggis ‘legal’ again in the state – a light-hearted gesture that perfectly captured the spirit of the campaign.

Frame Creative Director Callum Robertson said: “Here’s the challenge nobody talks about with World Cup campaigns: if you’re not an official sponsor, you can’t touch the tournament with a bargepole. No logos, no match footage, no association. So how do you make a meat brand relevant at the biggest football event on the planet? You find a different story to tell.
“America has banned traditional haggis since 1971. For most people, that’s just a quirky pub fact. For us, it was the perfect opportunity to create something fans could genuinely get behind.
“The Tartan Army were always going to do Scotland proud. We just gave them another cause to carry with them. Seeing the campaign travel from Glasgow Airport to Times Square, television studios, fan zones and ultimately the Governor of Massachusetts’ office was beyond anything we imagined.
“We genuinely got the world talking about haggis. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

Clair Howison, Brand Director at Simon Howie Foods, said:
“This campaign started with one simple thought: it can’t be right that Scotland’s fans can travel to the World Cup but Scotland’s national dish can’t.
“We hoped it would make people smile. What we didn’t expect was to see fans genuinely adopt it as their own.
“Watching our flags fly across America, seeing the story picked up by news organisations around the world and hearing thousands of Scots proudly chant ‘No Haggis. No Party.’ has been incredible.
“Whether the law ever changes or not, we’ve shown that a simple idea rooted in Scottish pride can capture imaginations around the world.”

More than 50 years after traditional haggis was banned in the United States, Simon Howie proved the story was still worth telling.
No Haggis. No Party.

-Ends-
Issued by Frame / Simon Howie
Abbie McDowall, abbie.mcdowall@frame.agency
Gregor Kyle, gregor.kyle@frame.agency