Michelob ULTRA's brand positioning is centered around active enjoyment. The brand's tagline is "It's Only Worth It, if You Enjoy It." This positioning puts the brand in a unique space to have a point of view on equality within sports. Last year, ULTRA committed more than $100M over the next five years and tackled women's sports visibility on social media with the "Save It, See It" campaign. Since then, the brand has made a commitment to highlight women in front of and behind the camera and throughout their work. In the latest chapter of Michelob ULTRA's fight for visibility for women's sports, the brand highlighted a pioneer in marathons, while also helping to close the representation gap in marathons by creating an avenue for more women to run their first marathon.
This campaign was centered around using Kathrine Switzer's story to jump start an effort to close the gender gap in marathons and add another chapter to ULTRA's fight for visibility for women in sports.
We took consumers inside the iconic photo of Kathrine being assaulted at the Boston Marathon and used Kathrines voiceover to create a moving film that aired during the NYC Marathon to help raise awareness of the gender gap in marathons and jump start our Michelob ULTRA "Run Fund" initiative. The Run Fund will help cover race fees and provide training to first-time female and non-binary runners to help close the gender gap.
In addition to the film and Run Fund, we supported this campaign with OOH and a panel discussion on women's running with Kathrine Switzer, Jocelyn Rivas (youngest woman to run 100 marathons), Olympian Alexi Pappas and the founder of the NYC Marathon non-binary division Jake Federowski in advance of this year's marathon
In the end, this campaign drove a solid earned media spike and helped increase brand favorability for ULTRA. Some highlights include:
- Over 5K Run Fund Submissions to-date
- Nearly 10K Social Mentions during Marathon
- Nearly 50M PR Impressions
- The film was ULTRA’s Most-Shared IG Reel of All-Time
