2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Coors Light needed to break through to baseball fans. Over the past 30 years, the brand’s biggest competitor has spent millions of dollars carving itself into the identity of Major League Baseball and the culture of its fans. However, the sport itself is actually the perfect drinking occasion for Coors Light.

Baseball is a slow-paced game, and its spectators perfectly suit the profile of the brand's primary target – those looking for moments to chill, unwind, and get together with close friends. The brand needed an opportunity to connect with this audience who embodied the brand's values but were already spoken for.

Baseball fans are deeply attached to the game and its players, making memorabilia highly valued. They enable fans to make tangible connections to cherished moments, show their fandom and relive the excitement they experienced during a game. With a newer generation of socially connected fans, viral moments can
shape memorabilia.

Coors Light turned a viral baseball moment into a new can design and unofficial sports Sponsorship. During a game, Shohei Ohtani, the greatest player in baseball history, hit a line drive straight into a Coors Light ad. The ball hit the ad directly on the image of the can, leaving behind a black square of broken pixels. Instead of fixing the embarrassing flaw, the brand embraced it by turning it into an unofficial sports sponsorship that included a special edition can replicating the moment.

With online attention fleeting, Coors Light acted fast. 48 hours after Shohei Ohtani broke Coors Light’s ad with a foul ball. The brand responded by launching special edition packaging that was an identical replica of Shohei’s broken ad. The packaging contained the same black square of dead pixels from the ad in the exact same spot on the can.

To promote the new cans, the brand added the black square to active Coors Light ads, “breaking” them to create an entirely new campaign from existing media placements. The campaign consisted of OOH, including local placements in the Anaheim area, and a takeover of the screens inside Angel Stadium during Shohei’s first home game after breaking Coors Light’s ad. The brand also took to social with “broken” ads across all platforms that drove fans to an online store where they could buy the can and add it to their
baseball collections.

Coors Light drew all the eyes of a highly engaged and dedicated fanbase away from the “official beer of baseball” and became the fan favourite. The campaign went viral overnight. Rather than talking about Coors Light's broken ad, fans celebrated the brand’s quick response.

Initially launching in the U.S. with $0 in sponsorships or player endorsements, “Coors Lights Out” became a global phenomenon on social media and generated media coverage in design, lifestyle, and sports outlets worldwide. Coors Light even trended higher than the official beer of baseball.

The special edition cans quickly sold out in under 24 hours. The demand was so high that fans added their own black squares to existing cans, merch, and anything else with the Coors Light logo. Even the broken panel itself became a piece of baseball memorabilia that was auctioned off to collectors for over $7,000.

Ohtani's fans in his home country were also eager to participate in the experience. So Coors Light made brand history by bringing its cans to Japan for the first time ever. The brand leveraged the star power of one of the world’s most prominent athletes, breaking the mold of sports marketing with one broken ad.

Credits

Chief Creative Officer: Aaron Starkman, Daniel Lobaton, Mike Dubrick
Chief Strategy Officer: Sean McDonald
Executive Creative Director: Xavier Blais
Creative Director: Yusong Zhang
ACD, Art Director: Nick Noh
ACD, Copywriter: Jordan Darnbrough
Producer: Kate A. Spencer
Director of Print Production: AJ Merrick
Studio Manager, Production Artist: Todd Bennett
Strategist: Marguerite Gaylie
Production Company: Mt Vernon Production Company
Executive Producer: Ken Franchi
Motion Camera - Black Magic Camera (handheld): Sean Teegarden
Motion Camera - Black Magic Camera (handheld): Chad Sano
Still Camera - DSLR Nikon (handheld): Christian Hoover Thompson II
DIT: CJ Miller
Audio: Erik Clabeaux
Production Assistant: Eric Ellis
Production Assistant: Darian Grey
Production Assistant: Kaylor Myers
PR Lead: Meredith Montgomery
Account Director: Sara Lemmermeyer
PR Intern: Marta Miklas
ICF: Samantha Miller, Meaghan Daly, Isaac Reynoso
Partner, Managing director: Marie Lunny
Account manager: Dishant Verma
Angels Baseball: Sr. Director, Partnership Services: Bobby Kowan
Can Printers: Canworks Printing, BluEdge

Client:
CMO: Sofia Colucci
VP, Marketing: Marcelo Pascoa
Sr. Marketing Manager: Eric Kouri
Associate Marketing Manager: Saron Strait
Director of PR: Maya McDonald
Field Marketing Manager: Allie Mason