Dethroning Budweiser - our biggest competitor - would take more than just winning back share of mouth. It would take winning back Canadians’ hearts and minds through the sentiment, relevancy, and perception building buzzworthiness that PR does best; that’s why the key components of this campaign centered around two high voltage PR activations. First, we launched with a massive press release across Canada’s major publications just before Canada Day, inviting all brewers to participate. Then, we unlocked our robust influencer strategy, engaging key media personalities and partners with high stakes in their Canadiana - including NHLer Darcy Tucker and Olympians.

In Canada, an American beer, namely Budweiser, was the best selling beer. This made Canada one of the only countries in the world where the #1 selling beer was an import. As a nation that claims to love it’s beer, that was unacceptable.

Molson Canadian is the flagship beer of Canada’s oldest brewery. So as the beer with the country's name on it, our goal was to bring some collective pride back to our beer loving nation. We wanted to not only get Canadians to question why they weren’t buying Canadian beer, but also give them a great reason to do so and ultimately steal market share away from Budweiser.

Introducing The Most Canadian Beer Case Ever - a beer case filled with competitor brands standing label to label for the good of Canadian beer, and to get Canadians to #MakeItCanadian.

The campaign launched ten days before Canada Day with a letter from the Molson family, announcing our mission to #MakeItCanadian.

The open letter in Canada’s largest national newspaper, The Globe & Mail, let Canadians know that the #1 selling beer in Canada wasn’t Canadian, and invited other brewers to participate.

Our social platforms served as the playground for real-time custom invites to reach out to (and playfully challenge) breweries and all Canadians to join the case.

In just nine days, over 40 brewers had joined the case. From legal agreements to complicated supply chain logistics, everything was handled in real-time and done before Canada Day.

And then we actually started selling the cases full of brands that weren’t ours.

For a country that loves beer as much as Canada, we knew Canadians would be ashamed to learn we were one of the only countries where the best selling beer was an import - from America, no less.

Our strategy was to run this provocative insight across Canada’s major publications, using the uncomfortable truth strategically close to Canada Day to incite media attention, talk-value, and action.

Once we generated unrest with the bitter truth, we followed it up with an even bolder initiative that would allow Canadians to act on their newfound feelings of national pride: The Most Canadian Case Ever, filled with competitor Canadian brands, done in the name of bringing Canadian beer together to take on Budweiser.

Finally, we seeded the case with key opinion leaders and engaged in real-time social conversation, keeping the conversation going and reclaiming the Canadian mantle.

We launched in print and social with an open invitation to all brewers across Canada to join hands in making “the most Canadian case ever”. The response was swift, with over 40 brewers signing up.

To coincide with the letter, we issued a national press release announcing the #MakeItCanadian initiative. We conducted proactive, targeted media relations before, during and after launch to drive awareness and media coverage via paid partnerships with high profile blogs and prominent news publications.

Social platforms served as the playground that allowed us to reach out to breweries to join us on our mission, and via sponsored editorial, encouraged Canadians to do the same.

The campaign’s central strength was to reach out to influencers in a personal way, seeding the case to those including famous Olympians and Hockey players. We coordinated with them to post on Canada Day, once the cases were available for purchase.

The Most Canadian Case Ever was good business for all Canadian brewers, delivering both a volume and market share increase of Canadian beer. In fact, volume of beer Canadian beer consumption saw a 19% increase. share of Canadian beer consumption increased by 2% while share of American beer consumption declined by the same amount.

The Most Canadian Case Ever was especially good for Molson. It helped close the market share gap between Molson and Budweiser by 7 points. Sales increased 11%. PR and Social earned impressions exceeded +31MM, and with Molson Canadian’s share of voice in the category up from 15% to 71%, it overtook Budweiser for the first time in 4 years.

Finally, Molson Canadian saw a 25% increase in perceptions of being part of the community, and a 36% lift in authenticity metrics as being Canada’s beer, reinstating us on the mantle.