Molson Coors dropped some early but heavy-hitting Super Bowl news this week, announcing the brand will have a national in-game ad or ads during Super Bowl 57 (LVII for the Roman numeral fans out there). It will be Molson Coors’ first big-game entry in some three decades.
The lull comes from an exclusivity deal that placed an advertising squeeze on beer brands in the past, limiting the number of national spots that feature beverages and brews.
While that roadblock’s origins go back to 1989—the first year of USA TODAY Ad Meter—some of Molson Coors’ portfolio has appeared after in the ratings, most notably Miller Lite, which finished 13th in 1993 with a spot starring Bob Uecker.
Since then, however, the undisputed commercial king of beers has been…well, The King of Beers.
Anheuser-Busch has been the Super Bowl Sunday advertising champion, with Budweiser, Bud Light and the other iterations winning the most Ad Meter ratings of all time, while creating some truly iconic commercial characters in television history: Frogs, dogs, and even a zebra, to name a few.
But controlling the commercial beer aisle is a lot easier when the shelves are restricted.
“Since 1989, there’s only been one official beer advertiser during the Super Bowl, and honestly, that’s no fun,” says Molson Coors Chief Marketing Officer Michelle St. Jacques. “After almost 40 years away, you can bet our brands are going to bring it this year. Game on.”
While Molson Coors has been absent from the in-game rush for the past 30 years, the company has done a solid job hanging around the pop-culture conversations during Super Bowl Sundays. Recently, the brand has taken the popular approach of introducing interactive campaigns to draw fans’ attention during such a highly trafficked event.
That level creativity adds another layer to the overall development, an exciting build as advertising’s biggest stage enters conversations with the NFL season on the horizon.
As for which brands commercial fans will see? That’s also part of the intrigue. Molson Coors does have football-centric brews in Coors Light and Miller Lite, plus a hard seltzer option from Topo Chico, and St. Jacques hinted, the decision “comes at a time when momentum behind [Molson Coors’] biggest brands – and our newest big bets – is stronger than it’s been in years, and we’re committed to investing behind them on the largest national stage there is.”
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