Coors Light's newest campaign (interestingly from DDB despite the brand supposedly shifting the bulk of its creative to Leo Burnett last year) isn't here to tell you how it supports you in these uncertain, difficult times.
It's here for you in these "sucky" times. It all sucks. Just everything.
Coors Light can't change that. But the brand is offering free 6-picks, up to a total of 500,000 beers, to at least make it all more bearable.
The brewer's new campaign builds on a photo of 93-year-old Olive Veronesi, who held up a sign asking for "more beer"—a message shared millions of times in social media. Coors Light sent her several cases, then paid it forward by offering more free cold ones for anyone else who's earned it by enduring the quarantine era.
Setting aside your opinion of Coors Light as a beverage, you have to give the brand props for sharing the wealth a bit and acknowledging the odd feeling of the times in a way that goes beyond simple supportive platitudes.
“So many brands are trying to articulate how people are feeling, tugging on the heartstrings,” Britt Nolan, North American CCO for DDB, told me this morning. “What we found is that it’s really hard to articulate how people are feeling right now. It just sucks. And it sucks differently for everybody."
Which makes this a good time for me to ask again: How are you doing?
I truly want to know what's been crappy and what's been constructive for you as you've adjusted to this new abnormal. I started posting to TikTok this weekend, if that gives you any sense of my current mental state.
Drop me a note at the email below, on Twitter at @Griner or Instagram at @DavidGriner and let me know what new skills and insecurities you've developed!
David Griner
Creative and Innovation Editor, Adweek
David.Griner@Adweek.com