Coors Light’s Digitally Printed Light’s Out Beer Can
What happens when the beer brand’s stadium billboard is damaged by a Shohei Ohtani-hit baseball? It designs a limited-edition can that honors the feat.
From his ace-level pitching skills to his prodigious hitting prowess, it seems there’s little that Los Angeles Angels superstar Shohei Ohtani can’t do.
Except stay out of the limelight, it appears.
Even Ohtani's foul balls can take on a life of their own. For example, while playing the New York Mets at Citi Field last week, the slugger’s well-struck foul ball traveled far enough to knock an LED light out on the Coor’s Light billboard.
You can see the exact lights-out moment in this Tweet, which also offers a quick-witted comment by the Mets announcer.
In an amazingly nimble marketing play, the brewer responded with a digitally created mockup on X (formerly Twitter) August 28.
The post received more than 1 million views, 7,000+ Likes, and nearly 1,500 reposts.
The overwhelmingly enthustiastic reception instantly prompted the brand into action to make the can a reality, according to Marcelo Pascoa, VP of marketing for Coors family of brands.
“The brand’s creative agency, Rethink, quickly identified this as an opportunity to act immediately,” he tells us. “Rethink partnered with the agency teams including global marketing agency ICF Next, to execute this reactive Coors Light program.”
The incredibly short turnaround timeframe was enabled by an agile packaging technology, digital printing, using traditional Coors Light cans, Pascoa says.
Like the ball-struck bulb, all that was needed was a well-placed touch of black.
Pascoa says it’s the first time that commemorative cans have been produced for a program like this.
A limited amount of the commemorative cans were available online at the Coors Light website for $17 to consumers 21+ on September 5.
As you would imagine, the one-of-a-kind cans were an instant hit. By the next day, "the cans had officially sold out!” Pascoa reports.
In another slick move, the brand made sure Angels fans could personally relive the moment at the team’s first home game back in Southern California. The company provided stadium signage that replicated the damaged Coors Light ad from the Angels-Mets game. That was just a few days later, on September 1, against the Oakland Athletics.
We tip the proverbial cap and add a “curtain call” round of applause to Coors Light's all-around marketing savvy and 100% cool packaging.
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