Since the beginning of sport, the pressure to win has been a constant burden for athletes. For people who love the game they play, this pressure often consumes them, causing resentment and unnecessary injuries. Michelob Ultra, a beer brand with a focus on sports, has spent years challenging the status quo of the athletic world with their “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It” platform, questioning if the world’s most elite athletes are happy because they win, or win because they are happy. Through this effort, the brand has established long standing partnerships with Serena Williams, Peyton Manning, Alex Morgan and other highly decorated athletes. We were tasked with building atop this ongoing platform and evolving it in a fresh way.

Joy is the ultimate trophy. With this line, we reframed what the reward of victory actually is. Because when you look at a photo of Serena Williams, Anthony Davis, Nneka Ogwumike, Brooks Koepka, Alex Morgan and Peyton Manning holding a trophy, you realize something. The reward isn’t the piece of metal in their hands. It’s the story that you can see in the smile reflected on that piece of metal.

The strategy behind this campaign was aimed at diffusing the pressure that’s been built up in sports for so long. More and more, stories of athletes retiring from the game early have made their way into the news cycle, and the climate of American sports has become borderline toxic. We strategically chose athletes who embody our brand message, and selected a photo that didn’t just have a smile reflected in the trophy, but had a genuine story behind it. That way, the athletes would reveal the meaning behind the image once they posted it on their social media channels.

We launched with a wide spread OOH push in New York’s Times Square, LA’s Xbox Plaza, and Miami’s Downtown District. Then, we sparked a conversation on social media, posting each of our athletes’ images across our platforms. Once our core fans started talking, each of the athletes posted their own asset on their Instagram accounts and told the story behind the smile. Like Serena Williams, who shared that her photo captured the first time she won a championship as a mother. Or Anthony Davis, who revealed that his smile was because he won it all in the year they dedicated to Kobe Bryant. Next, we ran full page print ads in the newspapers of cities close to the athletes hearts, like Anthony Davis’s hometown Chicago Tribune and Nneka Ogwumike’s Houston Chronicle.

We saw a 2498% increase in saves on women athletes’ content on social media, according to the metrics of our partner athlete’s content—which proves that people who saw our campaign engaged with our message.

$100 million commitment to women’s sports. Part of that money was donated to the Women’s Sports Foundation, which helps fund emerging women athletes from all ages, racial backgrounds, and sexual orientation. Another part is dedicated to equal pay in sports and equal representation of men and women athletes in all of Michelob’s advertising.

It is “the largest financial commitment by any brand to women’s sports,” according to Forbes.

The Save It, See It movement was covered by Forbes, CNN, Fox, USA Today, People Magazine, Hypebeast, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, NBA, WNBA, etc.

Our campaign was supported and shared by professional athletes across the world from different sports, including soccer, basketball, tennis, running, golf, and more.