We wanted to match our competitors’ presence in America’s biggest sport, but only had a local activation budget to compete against their national sponsorship. So we leaned into an injustice that a local, passionate fan base wanted corrected to create a national story.

Coors Light championed Tom Flores, one of the most accomplished coaches in National Football League history and first Latino quarterback ever. Despite Flores’ illustrious career as both coach and player, he had endured two decades of being denied American Football’s highest honor: inclusion into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We aimed to change that.

The brief was to engage Latino football fans and celebrate Hispanic heritage. But how could we celebrate that knowing there was a lack of representation by the sport? After some research, we noticed that a Latino legend had been repeatedly denied entrance into the Hall of Fame.

So we decided what Latino football fans would care about most was seeing one of their own getting the recognition he deserves. Once we educated the 21-30 target about the 83-year-old four-time champ Tom Flores, they were inspired to take action for his inclusion by signing an online petition, tweeting to the voting committee and even creating fan art.

Latino football fans felt seen and together we made sure their voices were heard.

Beer brands have a long history of hiring athletes to talk about their beer. But in this case, we did the opposite. Our campaign had the beer brand talking about the athlete instead. And not just any athlete. The chillest legend in the history of the game: "The Iceman."

So it made sense for the chillest beer, Coors Light, to use all of its resources to sponsor The Iceman on his road to the Hall of Fame.

We needed to give Tom a voice. He's a quiet guy and that hasn't helped his case for the Hall of Fame. People don't remember him. So we knew we had to speak for him and use the brand's platform to get the entire football community talking about the injustice of Tom Flores not being in the Hall. Tom agreed and enthusiastically joined the campaign.

We learned that Raiders and Latino fans both felt disrespected by the larger football world. Latinos saw their history of contributions to the sport as largely ignored, and Raiders fans considered their team as persecuted by a biased league. They voiced this often in articles and on social media. Our strategy was to target those vocal fans to speak for Tom Flores, while amplifying his story in social media and national press.

But there was one particularly painful grievance both shared.

A common cause they’d advocated for years, yet everyone else had ignored.

A cause Coors Light could champion.

All Coors Light needed to do was partner with a legend who left the NFL 25 years ago.

Enter Tom Flores, a Latino ex-Raider who, despite winning four Super Bowls and being the first minority head coach in NFL history, had been denied.

In addition to other campaign channels, we launched a movement amplified across social media and national press to encourage fans to speak up and sign a petition to get Tom "The Iceman" Flores into the Hall of Fame. This led to a passionate fan base rallying around a football legend.

So many people tweeted for Tom that we turned it into a live action stunt. We drove around with tweets on the side of a truck all around the home of the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.? We even carved the Iceman a bust out of ice. Our efforts took place for three weeks leading up to Tom Flores' Hall of Fame vote on the day before the Super Bowl to maximize petition signatures and influence the Pro Football voting committee.

We doubled our impressions goal to reach 1.1 billion impressions including 76.9 million earned social media impressions. We sparked debates in over 90 national media outlets about racial biases against Flores and a brand's role in making sports history. Despite the debate, press mentions were 94% positive and social mentions were 92% positive, 11 points above averages.

Among "Tom Flores" social posts, 35% mentioned Coors Light by name. National recall doubled from the brand's 2020 averages and tripled amongst the Latino target (28% awareness and 31% brand recall.) All this resulted in a 75% consideration increase among 21+ drinkers, and positive perceptions increasing by 50%.

In Flores' hometown, the special edition Iceman cans sold out in one day and over 10,000 fans signed the online petition to induct Flores. But the best result? We made history. After 20 years, the Hall of Fame finally inducted Latino legend Tom Flores.