In a few short months in 2013 the Molson Canadian Passport Fridge quickly became a new national icon and an unprecedented brand asset for Canada’s most famous beer. It’s a remarkable accomplishment that united a mature brand with never-been-done-before technology to incredible effect.

Molson Canadian faced a scenario familiar to many established scale brands. In markets all over the world, the challenge of being a mass brand when consumers increasingly want products which are either premium or niche is not an easy one. As one of Canada’s largest beer brands, its ubiquity works sometimes works against people’s perception of the beer’s quality and specialness.

The business context for the brand was a challenging one. The overall beer category in Canada has been contracting, and the premium segment in which Molson Canadian competes has been declining at a rate even greater than the total market. With the exception of a brief shining moment during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the brand experienced five years of slow but steady decline.

As if often the case with breakthrough ideas, the Passport Fridge has been able to successfully address multiple objectives for the brand. It needed to present Molson Canadian to Millennial drinkers in a way that gave the beer fresh relevance to this critical target. It needed to create a sense of popularity and brand momentum for Molson Canadian. The Passport Fridge did all of this and more, including the business goal of stopping the long-term share decline of the brand. In fact, it reversed this.

The object that achieved all this was a technological first: the only way to open the Passport Fridge is to scan a passport, but not just any passport will do. The only one with the power to open this fridge, and get at the Molson Canadian inside it, is a Canadian passport. Knowing young Canadians travel the world, we took the fridge to places where they would encounter it, then stepped back to see what would happen. Everywhere the fridge went it created crowds and curiousity. And every time a Canadian appeared, it created the opportunity for people to experience the beer, share it with others, and be reminded of the country they come from and the brand that represents it. The story of the Passport Fridge became a social media success, a business builder, and a new icon for one of Canada’s most powerful brands.