Last year, I had the opportunity to fly to New York City and meet with industry professionals on the cutting edge of PR. One of our stops was to Weber Shandwick. During my visit at the firm, I heard from Chris Kooluris, who shared several campaigns he’d worked on over the years spanning from VitaminWater’s $100,000 challenge to give up your smartphone to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse cruise with Royal Caribbean. It was like sitting at the feet of marketing royalty. And for a senior in college, hungry for experience in the field, I was on the edge of my seat.
He then pulled up a photo of a blue and orange fridge wrapped in a chain and padlocked. Dozens of images of the fridge flashed across my memory – I had seen this fridge everywhere on social media mere months before. We’d even discussed it in one of my public relations classes at school. For someone who doesn’t watch football or drink beer, my fascination with Bud Light’s Victory Fridge campaign is baffling even for me. Perhaps it’s the simplicity at the heart of it all that has secured its place as my favorite campaign to date.
If you’re unsure of what a Victory Fridge is, look no further as I revisit below Bud Light’s simple yet innovative marketing campaign and highlight key takeaways that can be applied to any PR push.
In January 2017, Bud Light sales were stuck in a rut. Despite the smash success of its “Dilly Dilly” campaign, the nation’s biggest beer brand suffered its largest annual volume decline ever in 2017, dropping 5.7 percent. With one of Bud Light’s highest-profile marketing assets (the NFL) approaching its annual climax (the Super Bowl), Bud Light was hopeful its sales would turn around. However, not even being dubbed the official beer of the NFL was saving them. Bud Light knew it needed to try something different.
Enter the Cleveland Browns.
In 2018, Bud Light (in partnership with its PR, marketing and advertising firms) decided that it would give away free beer in Cleveland, but only if the Browns won. It’s important to note that the Cleveland Browns had been the worst team in the NFL for years, at the time only winning one game in the previous two years. Any victory would’ve been monumental to long-suffering Browns fans.
To make the potential win a little sweeter, Bud Light installed “Victory Fridges” in 10 Cleveland-area bars and FirstEnergy Stadium. The fridges were to unlock simultaneously when the Browns won, allowing fans to celebrate with 200 free beers per venue.
News of the fridges spread like wildfire.
Everyone from Forbes to USA Today to Sports Illustrated covered the fridges. #VictoryFridge trended on Twitter. Fans posted the fridges on social media, garnering mass amounts of free, earned media coverage.
Then, after a 635-day losing streak, the Browns beat the Jets. Sweet victory.
Victory Fridges across Cleveland opened, and Browns fans celebrated together by drinking the free Bud Light their team had earned. While there are multiple ways to measure the value of Bud Light’s press coverage, speculation on Twitter from ESPN’s Darren Rovell said the night of the Browns’ victory alone was worth nearly $7 million in publicity, according to one third-party source. Weber Shandwick estimates over 2 billion impressions resulted from the campaign.
Key takeaways:
- Join cultural moments
- Create and magnify relationships
- Let your audience do the talking
- Place your product, client or message at the center
- Keep it simple
Of the campaign, Miles Ritenour, communications manager at Bud Light said, “We felt really good about the idea because of its simplicity and authenticity. The Browns’ record was already a major topic of conversation going into the season, and no brand had really seized the opportunity. The Victory Fridge did just that with a simple execution—fridges that unlocked when the Browns got their first win. It was easy to understand, built on a cultural insight, gave the people a role, and our product was at the center of it all.”