MICHELOB ULTRA ‘GET BUCKETS’

When Michelob Ultra signed a partnership with the NBA, they didn’t want to just announce it to the business community with a traditional press release, they wanted to make a splash in sports culture. The ‘Get Buckets’ campaign was an unignorable experience that generated excitement and re-engaged Canadian basketball fans for the start of the NBA season after having been starved for games in Canada the previous year due to COVID-19.

BACKGROUND

Michelob ULTRA was looking for an exciting way to announce its new partnership with the NBA and bring to life its “Live Fit. Live Fun” brand positioning. The NBA and Michelob ULTRA are partners in the US, but this would be the partnership’s first foray into Canada, where COVID had put a halt to all home games during the ’20/’21 season. Canadians had missed out on an entire season and were absolutely starved for NBA action to return.  

With all the anticipation brewing, many brands were activating in the basketball space, looking to tap into the excitement. Additionally, Canada’s only NBA team, the Raptors, had a partnership with one of Michelob ULTRA’s key competitors. Michelob Ultra needed to break through all this noise, establish some serious basketball cred, and drive up brand love, all on a modest budget and in a very short amount of time.

STRATEGY

Michelob Ultra’s ‘Live Fit. Live Fun’ ethos is what differentiates it from other beer brands.  The brand believes that life is about balance, and that fun and fitness are not mutually exclusive. So unlike other NBA sponsors who focus on association and watching the sport, Michelob Ultra’s strategy was to leverage its partnership with the NBA to inspire Canadians to get active through basketball.  Instead of being just another beer sponsor on the NBA court, we wanted to be a presence on courts across Canada, giving fans a taste of the fun they can have PLAYING basketball and staying active, just like their favorite NBA players.

THE IDEA

Our creative idea for the launch of the Michelob Ultra x NBA partnership was to transform billboards into backboards with actual rims and nets and challenge Canadians to “Get Buckets” all across Canada.

EXECUTION

We created the ultimate mashup of fun and fitness by literally turning our OOH placements into nets. We bought high impact billboards in Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary and mounted actual hoops on them. 

 Then, to get the word out, we took our messaging to new heights by setting up one of our nets on top of the tallest flat-roofed building in Canada (Scotiabank Tower) and had NBA trainer and influencer Chris Matthews play ball on top of the building. We turned this footage into a series of 15s and 6s videos that went live just before the first game of the season, encouraging Canadians to get buckets and driving to our interactive billboards.  We paired this launch with a national social contest asking fans to share footage of them Getting Buckets for a chance to win NBA swag, either on one of our nets, or one of their own.

RESULTS

The ‘Get Buckets’ campaign got Canadian basketball fans engaged in Michelob Ultra’s  new partnership with the NBA by encouraging them to play an active part in the fun that only happens when you take a shot. By turning our billboards to backboards, we exceeded the expectations of what a typical partnership launch looks like.

OOH: Our billboards garnered over 16MM impressions nationally.

OOH STUNT: Our 15s Stunt content piece received over 7MM views on YouTube, and from an earned perspective saw 8MM Traditional Media Impressions,  9MM Social Impressions.