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Molson is going big in its bid to rebuild an annual summer event for its Molson Canadian beer. It’s building a giant keg—big enough to hold half a million cans of Canadian—as the next phase of its “Code” campaign from agency of record Zig.
The “Mega Keg” will be unveiled at an end-of-summer party and concert in Toronto. A multimedia marketing and advertising campaign running throughout the summer will give consumers the chance to win tickets to the event.
The debut television ad begins with a narrator saying, “There’s a code here that seems to say when Canadians want to celebrate something, they usually make a mega-sized monument to it.” The ad shows giant tourist attractions such as Colborne, Ont.’s Big Apple and Edmonton’s Big Boot before revealing the Mega Keg at the centre of the party.
Customers get a chance to attend the “mega-sized” party from specially marked cases of the beer and by visiting MolsonCanadian.ca/megakeg, a microsite created by Zig’s digital cousin within the MDC network, Henderson Bas.
The television and web campaign are backed by a mobile component created by MyThum Interactive, national radio spots and a brewmaster tour arranged by Pilot PMR. Mediaedge:cia handled the media for the campaign.
“We wanted to come up with a kick-ass summer promotion,” says Sarah Eby, brand manager, Molson Canadian. “A marquee promotion that could be [held every year]. We hadn’t really been consistent with our promotions over the past years, and it was something that, traditionally, we had done well.”
Molson had success with previous summer promotions, which included the Molson Canadian Rock Star concert series and the Blind Date concert series, which Eby says is still mentioned by consumers in the company’s research. She anticipates this campaign to be a return to that tradition.
“Last year we did Molson Canadian Rocks Revealed, where we used text messaging technology for consumers to enter for a chance to go to the concerts, but I don’t feel it was as big as this is.”
While she says television components are not necessary to make a beer campaign successful in summer—when consumers spend more time on patios than couches—she thinks TV could have helped last summer’s mostly mobile effort. “We didn’t have the TV support behind it… it was more of a viral campaign that maybe fell a bit flat.”
