Born and brewed in the west for 150 years, Coors Banquet is one of America’s most iconic and long-lasting beers. With the rise in popularity of the modern day west, largely due to the show itself, hit Paramount Network show Yellowstone has captivated audiences with its rich story-telling and complex characters set against the backdrop of modern-day Montana. The old west and the new west – Coors Banquet and Yellowstone – create the perfect, authentic partnership.
After joining forces in Season 2, Coors Banquet is now the official beer integration and retail partner of Paramount Network’s Yellowstone Season 5. The campaign objective was to create a seamless 360 partnership both on-screen and off-screen, further reinforcing the connection to mutual fans. The overall goal was to create general partnership awareness in an authentic way, drive Coors Banquet awareness and sales, and entry to the co-branded sweepstakes, all while driving consumers to tune-in to Yellowstone Season 5.
As an integration partner, Coors Banquet is prominently featured throughout Yellowstone Season 5, and has been since Season 2 when the partnership began. Throughout the seasons, Coors Banquet products have been strategically aligned with scenes at the Bunkhouse, the favorite hangout spot of Yellowstone’s characters, to seamlessly establish the brand as the beer of choice for the fan favorite, fun-loving characters of the show. The integration is a best-in-class example of product placement that feels natural to the consumer, which has been clear as throughout the years fans have shared their love of both Banquet and Yellowstone across social media.
After three seasons of successful product placement, the Coors Banquet and Paramount Network teams saw an opportunity to further build the partnership off-screen for Season 5. With the strong collaboration of Paramount Network, a 360 plan was created. The Season 5 campaign extended to high-impact, co-branded in store point of sale, a suite of punchy paid social ads, and a co-branded sweepstakes where consumers could enter for a chance to “Live Like a Dutton” at an authentic, family-owned working ranch in Montana.
Across all consumer touchpoints, the look, feel, and messaging was consistent, from what consumers were seeing on screen to in their liquor stores. Assets pulled visuals from iconic Coors Banquet show moments and co-branded imagery, establishing a unified visual for the campaign. The teams also collaborated to produce out-of-home marketing assets, influencer kits and organic social assets, all of which reflected the consistent co-branded visuals. As excitement for the campaign grew, the teams continued to enhance and modify co-branded content for additional platforms and media channels. We created Coors Banquet x Yellowstone truck wraps and featured the co-branded imagery on the jumbotron at a Philadelphia 76ers game, bringing the partnership front and center for fans.
The Coors Banquet x Yellowstone campaign was a true 360 partnership that has surpassed all performance goals. While fans were able to spot Coors Banquet bottles and branding in new Yellowstone episodes every Sunday, they were also seeing co-branded, consistent visuals across channels and touchpoints that reinforced the partnership. The co-branded core visual was consistent across all platforms, making the partnership instantly recognizable to fans. The retail promotion was a tremendous success. Molson Coors distributors’ investment in the point-of-sale tools surpassed all expectations – based on portfolio benchmarks – in just the first week alone.
The Yellowstone x Coors Banquet partnership drove Molson Coors 4Q sales success with a +3.5% increase in Coors Banquet volume and a +10.3% distribution in the time period the campaign was live. All paid media assets exceeded the reach goal, further driving upper funnel awareness of the partnership.
The awareness- driving asset surpassed the goal by 23%, capturing 3.8MM incremental users. While the asset driving to the sweepstakes drove over 130K sweepstakes entries. This was the highest total record captured by a lead gen campaign in the Coors Banquet’s history, and for Molson Coors portfolio as a whole!
