Behind the Brew is a column where Molson Coors employees explain in their own words what’s new in their department and how it’s driving the company forward. James Nanney is the Director of Field Marketing – Great Lakes.
At Molson Coors, we want to bring creatively effective work to life in a way that gives people a reason to reach for us. When you think about the role of marketing, it’s all about building real brands for real people. And how does field marketing come into the mix? We’re the team out there on the front lines, bringing national programs to life and making sure our brands show up around the country, in markets big and small.
But that simplifies a much more complex situation. Collaboration is critical, as we work closely and in partnership with brand, shopper, sales, legal, chain and procurement. And while we help activate strong through-the-line retail and on-premise programs for brands like Miller Lite, Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Blue Moon and Peroni, field marketing sits at the intersection of marketing and sales.
Often, we do both at the same time. We get to flex that creative marketing muscle, but before we bring anything to life, we must first sell it into our distributors – and that means understanding their needs, what 21+ consumers care about in dozens of markets and marrying those insights together to bring our brands to life in a meaningful way that ultimately is aimed at driving sales.
And in a world of beverages that’s more competitive than ever, these insights are what help us break through the clutter and reach more consumers in more occasions.
Becoming a local expert
Field marketers need to comprehend the competitive pressures in the areas they serve, alongside what distributors are prioritizing for their business. Managing and nurturing that relationship – and being a true partner to them – starts with being a local expert, which is more nuanced than you might think.
For example, a program might have a great food partner that’s a slam dunk in a majority of the country. But if you’re in a state where most beer is sold in liquor stores without food, you’ll need to flag that for the brand and shopper team and either find a workaround or come up with a different idea to bring that program to life in your area within the most important classes of trade for that geography. You can’t do that unless you’re very familiar with those markets and understand the particulars of an area.
Sometimes it’s about finding the right way to connect a brand’s national campaign to a local audience. For example, Coors Light is all about Mountain Cold Refreshment and Choosing Chill. While a state like Minnesota doesn’t have many mountains, it certainly knows how to embrace the cold. How else do you explain the popularity of a sport like ice fishing? That's why we recently worked on a partnership between Coors Light and Striker, a premier fishing gear company, which is renowned in the area for its ice fishing suits. This is an example of a program that amplifies a local passion point, but not something that would be prioritized at the national level.
Another priority for field marketing is to ensure to each brand in our portfolio has a unique proposition in the market. To ensure Coors Light is relevant in a state like Louisiana, we found a unique and ownable way to get 21+ consumers’ attention. Nothing is more authentic to Louisiana than a crawfish boil – so Coors Light partnered with the company that produces the kind of pot you’d traditionally use for a boil to build displays. It was a hit because it was authentic to a passion point for a particular set of drinkers and resonated with them locally
Regardless of where the display is, we want locals to see our brands and say, “That brand gets it.”
Going big with alliances
Another huge job for field marketing is bringing alliances to life – and that alone is an all-year-round affair, whether that’s supporting music festival season, college and pro athletics or the roster of celebrity fans we have across many of our biggest brands.
This is a huge investment from a Molson Coors and distributor standpoint, and it’s a huge opportunity to capture the attention of new and existing brand fans, so you can’t just rinse and repeat the same program every year. You have to innovate.
The best way to do that is to approach it from a fan’s perspective. After all, people love to go to baseball games, football games, concerts and races. So how do you activate in a way that will draw other 21+ fans in?
Obviously, with football alliances, we want our brands to show up on game day, whether that’s signage at the stadium or at local bars and restaurants. But we also like to say, “game day is every day.”
With a brand like Miller Lite, we tie our local programs to our national programs. Nationally, the brand is involved with fantasy football, which people check all week. At a local level, we make sure stores and bars are set to activate an alliance either at retail, at home or in a stadium.
This ties in perfectly with Molson Coors’ focus on championing beer occasions. We’re all out there trying to say to 21+ consumers, “Hey, set down your phone for a second. You won’t regret it.” The brands that break through are the ones that win.
Finding new ways to connect
Over the last several years, the landscape has evolved quickly. Consumers, especially 21+ Gen Z, want to engage with brands in new ways – and that means we also have to evolve, too. While a television campaign or billboard highlighting our products will still certainly drive impact, we’ve also started to focus more and more on social and digital channels, allowing us to connect with 21+ drinkers in a very focused and genuine way.
It’s all about finding the right balance. Out-of-home billboards or spots on radio can certainly be effective, but there are also different ways of reaching 21+ consumers with hyper-local insights or advertisements on social media apps that can be focused and may work better in some cases.
As you can see, field marketing is more than just executing programs—it’s about building real connections with the consumers who are choosing to buy our products. It’s about making those occasions when consumers leave their home a little more special with a Molson Coors beverage—because those connections and those occasions are what will build long-lasting fans that will keep coming back, and ultimately deliver for our business, too.