It’s time to look at the shortlist for Marketer of the Year, which appears in Marketing’s Nov. 28 issue. We’ll be featuring each one online as a lead-up to our January 2012 issue, where you’ll find out which marketer will reign supreme.
Molson Coors
The NHL deal was huge, but the brewer made great strides connecting beyond hockey too
In a country that’s located north of the 49th parallel and has frozen conditions for almost six months a year (to borrow from a Molson Canadian TV spot debuting at the World Junior Hockey Championships next month), beer and hockey go together like a double-double and a chocolate dip doughnut. But beer and tree-planting? Beer and running? Beer and cooking?
In Molson Coors’ bold new marketing world, the answer is a resounding yes. Following the success of its sponsorship of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the brewer took a fresh “out-of-category” approach to marketing in 2011. That (plus a little deal it made with the NHL) was enough to land the company a spot on Marketing’s Top 10 Marketers list.
“There’s a theme through all of our work around challenging the expected and changing the model in beer,” says Peter Nowlan, chief marketing, strategy and business development officer at Molson Coors in Toronto. “It’s all grounded in consumer insight and it’s about broadening our frame of reference, looking at beverage alcohol much more broadly than our traditional approach to market.”
Take beer and cause-marketing, for example. This summer, the “Molson Canadian Red Leaf Project,” in partnership with Tree Canada, WWF and Evergreen, saw employees and local participants plant 100,000 trees in 10 communities across the country, as well as take part in various environmental cleanups. With the tagline “Do Some Good, Get Some Awesome,” volunteers were rewarded with free tickets to a concert that coincided with the event date.
The initiative builds on Molson Coors’ “Made From Canada” marketing platform, which launched last year and celebrates how the land intimately connects Canadians. “The land plays a pretty significant role in all of our advertising and things that we’ve done,” says Jamie Sprules, senior brand manager of Molson Canadian. “We thought, if the land is that important to Canadians and it’s that important to our brand and the quality of our beer, then we should be investing in making [the land] better.”
Also on the cause-marketing front, Rickard’s partnered with Prostate Cancer Canada’s mustache-growing charity event, “Movember,” and is encouraging consumers to challenge their friends at MoRickards.ca. The company’s out-of-category strategy was also behind Rickard’s partnership with Food Network’s Top Chef Canada, which integrated Rickard’s beer into chef challenges and drove “huge awareness among a foodie audience,” says Adam Moffat, Molson Coors’ director of external communications. On the product innovation front, the company launched Rickard’s Blonde, a citrusy, German-style pilsner, in June.
Connecting with health-conscious Canadians was also on the menu this year. In May, low-calorie Molson 67 sponsored the Toronto Half Marathon and Energizer Night Race, which took place in major cities across Canada. It also partnered with the Running Room, which is “really fresh territory for us,” says Dave Bigioni, senior director, marketing at Molson Coors. Molson 67 has a media buy within the retailer’s bi-monthly newsletter to members nationally, and the Running Room integrates brand mentions into its editorial.
Also of note, the company launched Molson 67 in Quebec in February. “Molson Canadian hasn’t historically played a big role for us in Quebec,” says Bigioni. “But we found the 67 proposition was very compelling in the marketplace and was really an opportunity for us.”
But the biggest win for Molson Coors this year was undoubtedly its $375-million, seven-year NHL sponsorship deal, though the victory was only realized after a protracted legal battle with its largest rival and previous sponsor, Labatt. (Labatt claimed it had a deal to renew its sponsorship, though the NHL opted for Molson instead.)
There’s more! Check out the Nov. 28 issue of Marketing for the full profile, and subscribe to find out who will be named the Marketer of the Year for 2011.
