Just as beer ads have become synonymous with football, a viewer cannot watch a sporting event without being inundated with sports betting ads and betting lines on the bottom ticker of the broadcast. Now, thanks to Molson Coors and DraftKings, there will be a Super Bowl ad where those worlds collide.
Molson Coors has previously teased in a full-page print ad that its Super Bowl ad will come down to a competition between two of its flagship beers, Miller Lite and Coors Light, but now we truly know why. Fans will be able to make guesses about a number of details within the Molson Coors spot, including whether the ad will ultimately be a Miller Lite or Coors Light, with fans ultimately competing for part of a $500,000 jackpot.
According to the brand, not even the CEO knows which spot will air until it appears in the first half of the game. To pull this off, Droga5, the new lead creative shop for Coors Light, according to two sources familiar with the change, filmed several different endings for the spot, which the brand is calling the “High Stakes Beer Ad.”
“After being shut out of the Big Game for more than 30 years, we wanted to do something that had never been done before,” said Michelle St. Jacques, Molson Coors’ chief marketing officer, in a statement. Previously, the brand had been shut out of the game because of AB InBev’s exclusivity clause on alcohol advertising in the Super Bowl, which the brand declined to renew in 2023. As a result, Heineken, Molson Coors, Crown Royal and Remy Martin are among the alcohol brands jumping into advertising’s biggest event.
Fans will be able to guess details like:
- The total number of beers
- What the breed of dog is pictured behind the bar
- The outfit of the bartender
- Whether the spot will feature the Coors Light Silver Bullet Train
Brands have used the Super Bowl to give away oodles of cash by making fans closely watch their spots for Easter eggs or details and correctly recalling them—think Mountain Dew’s 2021 spot with John Cena, which gave away $1 million to the first person to guess the right number of soda bottles in the spot, or Expensify’s 2019 Super Bowl music video, which fans could literally expense. Molson Coors’ spot is the first time fans could guess the content—and even the brand being advertised—in the spot to win money.
The brand will begin airing commercials touting the Super Bowl contest during the NFL Conference Championship Games this weekend with a call to action driving viewers to DraftKings’ app or website to participate.
DraftKings is running its own Super Bowl ad, which will feature Kevin Hart, but has not released any creative details around that ad yet. Its competitor in the space, FanDuel, is taking a similar approach to Molson Coors in the run up to the game. FanDuel has been teasing a live field goal attempt from NFL star Rob Gronkowski, which if successful will land fans money on Super Bowl Sunday.
