2020 Winner
2020 Winners
Molson Canadian
#MakeItCanadian
For decades Molson Canadian proudly claimed and owned the Canadian mantle as the only beer with our country’s name on the label. As a result, Canadians proudly held a Molson making them the number one selling beer across the nation. For years Molson held this position and utilized our Canadian pride to do so. That is until global competitors started to outspend, steal share and saturate the market. Molson went from the #1 selling beer in Canada to #2 as Budweiser took the top spot. Additionally, we saw the rise of the craft beer movement, which made our position as the nations beer less relevant.
The challenge was for Molson to reclaim its leadership position and get Canadians to question why they aren’t buying Canadian beer. We needed to be more relevant to the craft beer drinker as well as drive a wedge between our biggest competition, Budweiser.
Insights & Strategy
Beer in Canada is still big business. In 2019 alone, over 21 million hectoliters of beer were sold. But, here’s the thing, though most beer is brewed and consumed in Canada, the #1 selling beer here is actually Budweiser, an American brand. Making us one of the only countries in the world where our highest selling beer is an import.
While big beer still sells, the craft movement destroyed its reputation and painted big beer as the bad guy. Which for once gave consumers a new reason to question their beer choice; macro or micro? import or local?
Armed with this insight we set out to do the unthinkable. We wanted to make Canada’s #1 selling beer Canadian, even if it wasn’t ours. And since craft beer wasn’t our biggest competition we decided to ask them to join us on our ambitious mission to overtake Budweiser in support of Canadian beer.
Execution
10 days before Canada Day we launched with a full page letter from the Molson family to announce our mission to #MakeItCanadian, a call to all to support Canadian brewed beer. Then on July 1st we announced the Most Canadian Case ever, a case of beer that contained all Canadian beer, filled with competitor and rival brands joining together for the good of Canadian beer. We then took to social to reach out to brewers to join us.
The campaign ran on TV and OLV and was pushed on social and Youtube. Our social platforms served as the playground for real-time custom invites that allowed us to reach out to (and playfully challenge) breweries across the nation to join us on our mission. We then encouraged Canadians to do the same and even reached out to those brewers in real-time as well.
In just 9 days, over 40 brewers from across Canada joined the case. From legal agreements to figuring out complicated supply chain logistics, everything was handled in real-time and ready to go before Canada Day. Then it was finally time to actually start selling a case of beer full of brands that weren’t our own via delivery apps and e-commerce across the country. We even let the brewers keep the money. Why? Because we’re Canadian and that’s the Canadian thing to do.
Results & Impact
Everyone wanted a piece of the Canadian case. From everyday Canadians, to celebrities. As more people got their case, more people started talking about the campaign. Sales increased 11% since the launch of the campaign and with Molson Canadians share of voice up from 15% to 70%, it overtook Budweiser for the first time in 4 years.
Overall, the campaign generated over 85 million impressions and over 1 million dollars in earned media, helping Canadian beer dethrone the king of beers in the hearts and minds of Canadians, and in the process calling attention to the fact that a Canadian beer wasn’t the biggest seller in Canada.