With golf returning to the games after 112 years, we wanted to help golf fans celebrate this momentous occasion in a unique and ownable way. A way that only Michelob ULTRA could, as the official sponsor of the PGA and Team USA. We did this by bringing the beautiful game of golf together with the greatest game and the heartbeat of Rio – football. Partnering with the Professional Golfers’ Association, we identified a nail-biting play from golf’s history, a cliffhanger putt from Scott Langley. We then asked world-renowned football announcer Nilson Cesar to commentate the golf play. Cesar’s enthusiastic narration of Langley’s putt, as if it were a riveting football play ending in a surprise goal, was truly unique and ownable. The result was an unforgettable moment celebrating a 112-year return, from the official beer of Olympic Golf.

Our video was designed to spark conversation around the brand among golf fans. In the week leading up to the Olympics, we seeded the content with relevant media outlets like Golf Digest, Bleacher Report, Bunker’s Paradise and Golf Magazine to build buzz around the video. Then, we focused our digital media support on relevant channels where we could meet golf fans and Olympics viewers: NBC Sports Olympics Digital, CBS Sports, Twitter PGA Amplify, Condé Nast Digital and YouTube pre-roll. The video also ran on our owned social channels allowing golf fans to engage with the video. We ran 14MM online video impressions, 11MM social impressions and 5MM display impressions. For additional amplification, we asked golf influencers to send us their best trick shots and had Nilson record custom voiceovers. The resulting videos were unique to each golfer, and helped to further amplify our idea within the golf community.

We set out to breakthrough and earn attention. We did that in spades. The work generated 52.8 million impressions, was featured in 73 media placements, and generated a total of 16.9 million video views online (Source: Anheuser-Busch Impression tracker, YouTube Analytics). Media buzz for the brand increased by 35.5% vs. the prior month, outperforming the category by 91% (Source: YouGov Brand Index). And consumer attention increased by 29.8% vs. the prior month, outperforming the category by 53% (Source: YouGov Brand Index).

Not only did we capture the consumer’s attention, but that attention also drove sales. For consumers exposed to the creative, purchase Intent increased by 104% (Source: Anheuser-Busch re-contact study). And for the two weeks of the Olympics, our penetration growth rate tripled (Source: IRI).