In a time when the need for inclusivity was at a fever pitch, Coors Light noticed that the most exclusive club in sports, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, had excluded a Latino legend.
Tom “The Iceman” Flores was the first Latino quarterback in the NFL, the first Latino head coach to win a Super Bowl, and a four-time champion. But despite being eligible for induction since 1999, he kept being denied his rightful place. So, Coors Light, the champions of chill, sought to champion the chillest legend in the history of the game: “The Iceman.”
The first brand to advocate for someone’s Hall of Fame candidacy, Coors Light leveraged its existing partnership with Flores’ old team, the Las Vegas Raiders, by launching an integrated campaign that turned its consumer touchpoints, including social channels, TV and even its trademark silver can, into advocacy tools for fans to lobby on Flores' behalf.
Fans familiar with Flores' story jumped at the opportunity to use the national platform to question why the Hall of Fame overlooked his accomplishments, while younger fans were introduced to his history-making career.
Coors Light hit a nerve and yielded national fame beyond all expectations, doubling the impressions stretch goal:
- 1 billion impressions
- Spent 84% less per M impressions than projected
- - 76.9 M earned social media impressions
- - The petition also achieved 10.5k signatures, growing Coors Light’s email list
As a result, Coors Light received significant lifts in national recall (almost doubling the brand’s 2020 average), as well as lifts in consideration (75% among all 21+ drinkers) and penetration (.23% lift, second among all brand’s TV assets, and top with Latinos). What’s more, after 20 years, the Hall of Fame finally stopped giving coach Flores the cold shoulder and voted to grant the Latino legend his rightful place in football history.
Not bad for a brief meant to leverage a local market investment.