Mar­di Gras is a mar­ket­ing moment many brands fail to cap­i­tal­ize on. Mul­ti­ple brands are look­ing beyond the drunk­en debauch­ery of Bour­bon Street, tweet­ing from parades and shar­ing con­tent like recipes to get into the Mar­di Gras spir­it this year. Here’s how brands are weav­ing them­selves into the cul­ture and sto­ry line of Fat Tues­day.

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans

New Orleans’ pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball and bas­ket­ball teams, respec­tive­ly, have been active­ly push­ing out Mar­di-Gras-themed con­tent.

The Saints, for exam­ple, are tak­ing full advan­tage of their break in the off­sea­son by post­ing Vines from parades, as well as tweets like a Mar­di-Gras-themed GIF from quar­ter­back Drew Brees’ Sports­Cen­ter com­mer­cial and gen­er­al Mar­di Gras cheer from play­ers.

Sit­ting in Mar­di Gras traf­fic like… pic.twitter.com/Qz6eVH9ity — New Orleans Saints (@Saints) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2015

For their part, the Pel­i­cans are tak­ing full advan­tage of their King Cake Baby char­ac­ter. Accord­ing to Randazzo’s Camel­lia City Bak­ery, a king cake is an oval-shaped “cross between a cof­fee cake and French pas­try” that is dec­o­rat­ed in “pur­ple, which sig­ni­fies jus­tice, green, [which is] for faith, and gold, [which is] for pow­er.”

In addi­tion, a tiny plas­tic baby is hid­den inside to sym­bol­ize the Epiphany. And, as tra­di­tion goes, when king cake is served at a par­ty, the guest who finds the baby is dubbed king for a day and is oblig­at­ed to host the next par­ty.

The Pel­i­cans have been tweet­ing to fans with oppor­tu­ni­ties to meet their King Cake Baby in per­son and the team also cre­at­ed a faux Sports­Cen­ter spot fea­tur­ing the King Cake Baby at the Pel­i­cans head office.

Lind­sey Mitchell, cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er for the Pel­i­cans and Saints, said the King Cake Baby orig­i­nat­ed as a char­ac­ter that par­tic­i­pat­ed in in-game races, along with a Mar­di Gras jester and king. The King Cake Baby in par­tic­u­lar seemed to res­onate with fans and so the team want­ed to give them an oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act more, which is why the Pel­i­cans sched­uled pre-Mar­di-Gras appear­ances.

Fans were able to take pho­tos and self­ies with the King Cake Baby and the Pel­i­cans were able to cre­ate a “chance for peo­ple to real­ly get into the Mar­di Gras spir­it,” Mitchell said.

“New Orleans is very proud of things that are very New Orleans,” she said. “I think New Orleans is such a spe­cial mar­ket and it’s such a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to have Mar­di Gras every year. Every­one looks for­ward to it and every­one has their own tra­di­tions. To own a lit­tle Mar­di Gras spir­it in the King Cake Baby enabled us to have a lot of fun with this.”

Abita Brewing Company

The Louisiana-based micro­brew­er is uti­liz­ing Face­book video, as well as Insta­gram and Twit­ter to cap­ture the spir­it of Mar­di Gras and rev­el­ers using its prod­uct along parade routes.

Jor­dan Von Tress, a dig­i­tal strate­gist at adver­tis­ing firm Inno­v­a­tive Adver­tis­ing and who han­dles social media for Abi­ta, said the brand has been film­ing footage at parades over the last two weeks “try­ing to cap­ture what Mar­di Gras is and how Abi­ta plays into it” and post­ing videos on Face­book. Those efforts have also includ­ed reward­ing parade-goers who were drink­ing Abi­ta with Abi­ta swag. In doing so, Von Tress says the brand is try­ing to “cap­ture what Mar­di Gras is and what peo­ple are pack­ing in their cool­ers.”

Abi­ta, which has a Mar­di Gras Bock sea­son­al brew, wants to show­case its New Orleans and Mar­di Gras her­itage as much as pos­si­ble, he said.

“New Orleans is syn­ony­mous with Mar­di Gras, as is Abi­ta, which is syn­ony­mous with New Orleans. It’s the local craft beer of choice for many peo­ple and we’re find­ing every­where peo­ple asso­ciate one with the oth­er,” he adds. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the brand also recent­ly fea­tured its Pur­ple Haze brew in a “Fifty Shades of Grey” themed image to cap­i­tal­ize upon movie excite­ment as well. Von Tress says Pur­ple Haze is one of Abita’s most pop­u­lar beers on a nation­al lev­el and the brand “just want­ed to have some fun with it and to cap­ture that audi­ence with the hash­tag.”

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

Quick ser­vice chain Popeyes, which was found­ed in a New Orleans sub­urb in 1972, has been tweet­ing images of beads, as well as pho­tos from parades with the hash­tag #Find­Y­our­Mardi­Gras, which, per Top­sy, has been used about 80 times in the last month.

These beads are meant for sharin’. RT and throw some beads to your fol­low­ers this Mar­di Gras. #Find­Y­our­Mardi­Gras pic.twitter.com/5jGAOqS30K — Popeyes Chick­en (@PopeyesChicken) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2015

Zatarain’s

Cajun-style food com­pa­ny Zatarain’s has also been tweet­ing images from parades, as well as Mar­di-Gras-themed GIFs.

One of our favorite #floats of #Mardi­Gras so far this year. #Zatarains #MardiGras2015 #parades pic.twitter.com/kkNDYqgqVA — Zatarain’s (@Zatarains) Feb­ru­ary 14, 2015

The brand has com­pa­ra­ble con­tent on Face­book, which also includes images of beads and jam­bal­aya. And Zatarain’s has a vir­tu­al parade, the Zataroute on its Face­book page, which invites its 300,000 fans to fol­low along with the king cake baby.

Tabasco

Hot sauce brand Tabas­co, which is also a Louisiana native, is shar­ing Mar­di Gras recipes via Twit­ter to its 25,000 fol­low­ers.

Crystal

Anoth­er Louisiana-based hot sauce, Crys­tal, post­ed an image of staffers from its cor­po­rate office who were ready for Mar­di Gras on Twit­ter and Face­book,

Tulane

The New Orleans-based uni­ver­si­ty has been active on Twit­ter, tweet­ing about alum­ni in parades, as well as stud­ies about Mar­di Gras’ eco­nom­ic impact on the region and tips on where to find king cake, as well as over­all bead eti­quette.

“Tulane is so close­ly iden­ti­fied with New Orleans, this is just a nat­ur­al fit for us,” said Mike Streck­er, exec­u­tive direc­tor of pub­lic rela­tions at Tulane. “So many of us fac­ul­ty, staff and stu­dents take part in Mar­di Gras in parades and the march­ing bands march in a lot of parades and a few years back, the pres­i­dent of the board was the king of Car­ni­val.”

Not one but two @tulanealumni are roy­al­ty in @KreweofTucks — Hail King & Queen Tucks XLVII: http://t.co/bjkYBzJ4ry pic.twitter.com/4yfRshXB4l — Tulane Uni­ver­si­ty (@TulaneNews) Feb­ru­ary 14, 2015

Emeril Lagasse

The New-Orleans-based chef and restau­ra­teur is using Twit­ter and Face­book to share recipes with the hash­tag #Emer­ils­Mardi­Gras, which has gen­er­at­ed about 150 tweets in the past week, per Top­sy.

In addi­tion, Emer­il is anoth­er brand that has been tweet­ing from parades.

Get­ting ready to roll #Bac­chus #Mardi­Gras pic.twitter.com/HdFszpUx4A — Emer­il Lagasse (@Emeril) Feb­ru­ary 15, 2015

Jim Beam

Ken­tucky bour­bon brand Jim Beam wants to ensure its 100,000 fol­low­ers asso­ciate it with Bour­bon Street in its Mar­di Gras tweet from Feb­ru­ary 13.

Bring­ing the bour­bon to Bour­bon St. since 1795. #Mardi­Gras pic.twitter.com/N7GKImQeEt — Jim Beam (@JimBeam) Feb­ru­ary 13, 2015

Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods

And gluten-free brand Udi’s has gone as far as cre­at­ing a Pin­ter­est board with “mouth­wa­ter­ing gluten free recipes with a Cajun/Southern twist,” like gluten-free beignets, king cake and red beans and rice, as well as fried green toma­toes and craw­fish etouf­fee.

The board has 55 pins and 30,000 fol­low­ers.