The Situation: Younger adults like sweet alcohol. They’re 600% more likely than other adults to seek out an alternative to beer. Sounds like an easy opportunity for mike’s Hard Lemonade, right?

There’s just one problem. Beer still dominates drinking occasions in South America. If you go to a party, you’ll bring beer. Younger adults are 270% more likely to choose beer over other alcohol, even if they don’t necessarily want to drink it. Fitting in is key.

To launch in South America, mike’s needed to overcome this cultural norm.

The Brief: Launch mike’s Hard Lemonade in South America by recruiting 18- to 24-year-old drinkers and giving them the confidence to drink something other than beer at the party.

Objectives: Build familiarity with reluctant beer drinkers 18–24, cement mike’s as the alternative to beer, and become Brazil’s #1 Ready-to-Drink alcohol brand.

Description: For its launch in South America, mike’s Hard Lemonade needed to show that wherever beer goes, mike’s can go too. So it broke the boundaries of advertising.

mike’s made the first-ever ads within ads, showing up in its competitors’ campaigns.

mike’s partnered with major beer brands, putting someone drinking mike’s in each beer brand’s ad. mike’s then shot its own ads on the set of each beer ad, but from the mike’s drinker’s POV. The hard lemonade and beer commercials ran back-to-back, showing mike’s alongside beer and vice versa.

The campaign went “wherever beer goes” across TV, OLV, social media, out-of-home, events, radio, point-of-sale, and e-commerce.

Scalability: The campaign ran in Brazil and Colombia, and it’s expanding to Peru later this year.

Industry Impact: mike’s expanded the boundaries of marketing by blurring the lines between brands. With a never-been-done-before collaboration, mike’s created the first campaign inside another campaign.

The Insight: Younger adults drink beer at parties to fit in, even if they don’t like beer.

Key Message: Wherever beer goes, mike’s can go too. It’s sweet and easy to drink.

Target Audience: 18- to 24-year-olds who drink beer because everyone else at the party is drinking beer.

They want to be included in the group, but sometimes they’d rather drink something other than beer; something sweeter that anyone can enjoy. They’re driving the Ready-to-Drink category to grow 200% by 2030.

Asset Creation & Distribution: mike’s created assets within its beer partners’ campaigns and activations, and distributed them alongside its partners’ campaigns and activations.

That meant shooting mike’s films on the sets of beer films, offering an alternative to beer at major festivals, running back-to-back ads across channels, partnering with beer-loving influencers, sharing news coverage with beer, and showing up on the same store shelves and websites as beer.

Implementation: mike’s made the world’s first campaign within other campaigns. The brand showed up in beer ads and shot its own ads from the POV of a mike’s drinker.

And the campaign didn’t stop there. mike’s and beer brands shared their marketing across channels. It became quite the friendship.

Timeline: “mike’s In A Beer World” kicked off in Colombia in January 2022, followed by a launch in Brazil in March 2022.

Placement: mike’s went wherever beer brands and younger drinkers go: events like Lollapalooza and St. Patrick’s Day, and a mix of channels like TV, OLV, social, OOH, radio, e-commerce, and point-of-sale.

Scale: The campaign was an enormous all-hands-on-deck effort. To reach millions of people, mike’s partnered with 14 beer brands across multiple countries. And the effort will next expand to Peru later this year, along with a tentative launch across South America.

Reach: “mike’s In A Beer World” won millions of hearts and taste buds.

The campaign generated over 438 million impressions in Brazil and Colombia, and achieved the #1 sentiment score of any AB InBev brand in Colombia.

Engagement: In Colombia, the campaign generated a 213% increase in weekly mentions.

At events like Colombian St. Patrick’s Day, people even created a new consumption occasion: They mixed mike’s into their beers.

Business Targets: Winning during beer occasions skyrocketed mike’s year-over-year growth.

Before 2022, retailers sold mike’s in stores, but the brand hadn’t invested in a major marketing launch.

The campaign made an outsized impact:

1,625% sales growth in Colombia

192% sales growth in Brazil

93% sales growth incremental to beer sales in Brazil and Colombia

$4:$1 return-on-marketing-investment

And growing sales also meant outselling other Ready-to-Drink brands. mike’s outsold Smirnoff Ice, its biggest RTD competitor in Brazil, for the first time.