In April 2020, during the pandemic caused by the Covid-19, the production and distribution of beer were totally stopped because it wasn’t considered an essential activity, an industry in which Mexico is the world's number one exporter and the fourth producer on the planet, which represents more than 650,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Distribution centers, bars, restaurants, retailers, and small shops in which Victoria was the leader were unable to work, completely stopping Victoria's main distribution channel in Mexico.

For Victoria, it was crucial to react in record time and change its distribution structure in which dominated the market since 1865. The goal was to stay strong along with Mexicans, even if it meant reinventing itself completely as a product and thus opening up new distribution platforms that reduced the economic impact on thousands of jobs caused by the ban on beer during the pandemic.

According to Mexican law, a drink below 2% alcohol is not considered an alcoholic beverage. In record time, Victoria produced and distributed “Victoria 1,8” the world's first beer with 1,8% alcohol. The only beer that could be produced, distributed, and marketed during the beer ban.

To distribute the only beer on shelves and get to Mexican homes in the middle of the pandemic, an ambitious e-commerce structure was created in collaboration with the most specialized platforms in the sector such as Walmart, Amazon, Rappi, Chedraui, Comercial Mexicana, and Beerhouse.com.

This e-commerce structure also helped small merchants across the entire country with the help of tienditacerca.com, a company platform to distribute Victoria 1,8 in the smallest shops in Mexico where beer represents a high percentage of its profits.

The ban on beer triggered the highest demand in the history of Mexico, which ranks 4th globally in beer production, reaching 105M of hectoliters, outdating Germany, a brewing country by tradition and placing it as the country with the highest beer consumption in Latin America with an average of 68.8 liters per person.

The beer discount sparked comments on RRSS and increased the value of such precious liquid, even generating clandestine selling at home and on online retail platforms such as MercadoLibre.com by 54%.

The challenge was to develop together with our partners, a product that respected legal lines, met the need of an entire nation, and allowed us to create an extensive e-commerce network for it.

Once produced and prepared for distribution, the Victoria 1,8 purpose was launched as the beer that was born to help and reduce the economic impact of the beer ban on the entire production and distribution chain.

Stores were created within our partners' platforms, highlighting Amazon and Walmart cases that were adapted and optimized in real-time by interpreting the data behaviors in consumer purchasing processes.

Once established, we leveraged the trend of streaming concerts to promote a new moment of consumption and purchase, taking advantage of alliances with delivery platforms such as Rappi (Most Used Delivery App in Mexico) that amplify our distribution network and bring Victoria 1,8 immediately to consumers.

In two weeks, Victoria 1,8 managed to sell the same amount of hectolitres that Stella Artois takes a year. At the end of the campaign, it got 1.5M revenue which is 141% more than usual.

For two months Victoria 1,8 was the only beer on the market, creating a new category in one of the world's tightest industries, making it within the top 10 best-selling products on Amazon.

It adapted to the new digital entertainment behaviors that people were looking for, having a captive audience of 44M people at streaming concerts, with a positive feeling of 91%.

It helped keep an active production chain in shops and businesses that were affected during the ban, reducing the economic and social impact of an industry representing 650,000 direct and indirect jobs.

Cerveza Corona replicated our model with its own version of Corona Ligera with 1.8% alcohol degrees, months after our launch.