Using the tagline ‘The greatest goals deserve the greatest celebrations’, Budweiser Canada has expanded its NHL ambush ‘Red Light 2.0′ with a Goal Lab and has extended it into the USA
Without an NHL sponsorship (Molson Canadian is the league’s official beer), it aimed to knit together its local partnerships, individual franchise relationships and ‘love of hockey’ by launching its Wi-Fi enabled, real-time goal-synched ‘Red Lights’ in Canada (see case study).
The Red Lights themselves are replicas of hockey stadium red lights that flash and sound a horn whenever the home team scores that hockey fans connect them to their home wi-fi and use the Budweiser Red Light App to indicate which team/s are supported in the home.
Then, whenever that team scores, it triggers the horn and light in real time.
The device is described by the brand as the ‘ultimate in-home goal celebration’.
According to says Budweiser Canada director of marketing Andrew Oosterhuis, hockey is the ‘crashing point in Canada’ so Budweiser Canada developed the Red Lights specifically to ‘infiltrate’ the Canadian market.
In line with most contemporary sport sponsor / property partner strategies, Budweiser’s aim was to focus on elevating and enhancing the hockey experience for consumers and it chose to focus on enhancing the goal experience because it felt ‘goal-scoring’ was the most exciting aspect of hockey.
So once it had planned this approach, Budweiser Canada partnered with Buzz Products to create the Red Light technology.
The decision to expand the product-led, property-linked initiative south of the border came after Budweiser Canada realised that while none of the products had been sold in the USA the brand noticed that a significant number of its Red Light wi-fi signals were coming from homes situated in their southern neighbour.
It was clear that fans loved the devices so much that they were bringing their Canadian goal lights over the border, so Budweiser decided to open the gateway to the United States.
Budweiser Canada director of marketing Andrew Oosterhuis explaisn that initially it soft launched the decides in the US during the Spring and this resulted in all 1,000 US lights selling out in a month.
So, as the new NHL season gets into gear, Budweiser Canada is pushing ahead with a hard launch of the product in the United States.
The campaign is being led with an integrated, multi-platform campaign that spans TV and online work and it built around not just the Red Light itself but the so-called Goal Lab from which it emerged.
As the season began, the beer brand urged fans on both sides of the border to ‘prepare for a season of game-changing innovations’ and to #LightTheLamp – before driving them online to www. Budweiser.ca/goallab.
‘Budweiser Canada recognizes the potential of the Red Light and felt it was “a great asset for the brand to extent to the United States,’ Oosterhuis adds.
Interestingly, due to the difference in hockey culture in the USA and Canada, the marketing platforms have slightly differed.
A 360-degree Red Light 2.0 campaign in Canada approaches the subject from all platforms and angles, whilst a more tactical approach is rolling out in the United States – as Budweiser needs to discover and engage with hockey fans and then notify them that the product is ‘finally available in the USA’.
With a regional focus on the Northeast US – due to the traditionally higher levels of hockey interest there.
Comment
There is no doubt that, thus far, Red Lights have been a huge success.
After all, back in 2013 the very first set of Red Lights sold out on the first day and product lines have sold out multiple times since.
In total, Budweiser Canada has sold more than 75,000 Red Lights in Canada.
Budweiser Canada aim was to build their brand in Canada through hockey to allow the company to connect with their consumers and since launching Red Lights Budweiser claims significant improvement in the perception of the brand in Canada.
And due to their success, Budweiser is both expanding the device to the USA and continuing its growth in both markets
To ensure continued success, the beer brand is focused on continual evolution and improvement with enhanced capability updates both on the Red Lights themselves and for the wider initiative too.
For example, one new feature sees the light on prior to puck-drop in an app-flagged NHL game, it notifies the user that the game is starting in five minutes (giving fans enough time to ‘grab a Budweiser and get ready for the game!’)
Another 2015 extension was the November 2015 launch of an app that includes hockey-related emojis that can be used in text messages.
The application also includes capabilities such as sharing an animated red light on social media.
Another expanded function in Canada came this Autumn when it even added another sport.
When the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team made the MLB Playoffs this season (for the first time since the side’s 1993 World Series win), the Red Light App was updated to allow fans to select the Blue Jays and for the light to flash and the speaker to play ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’ to celebrate Blue Jays home-runs.
Red Light 2.0, the second branded product iteration, also sees Budweiser partner with various NHL clubs to play their own official goal horn rather than the generic sound.
Thus far, the Dallas Stars, St Louis Blues, Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames have all partnered with the beer brand to include their signature goal horns.
Budweiser believes that by including the official goal horn of these teams, it enables supporters to feel even closer to the actual live in-arena experience.
Another new customisable feature is the ‘delay’ option – as some games are broadcast with a slight delay, the horn can now be programmed to allow users to delay the horn based on the broadcast feed ( 0, 1, 2, 5, and 10 second delays are available) so that the horn is synched with the in-home TV action..
A previous example during the 2014 Winter Olympics was an additional strand of the campaign that saw a Red Light blimp created to flash the red light across the skies whenever Team Canada scored a goals in the Olympic tournament.
Links
Budweiser Red Lights Canada Website:
http://www.budweiser.ca/redlights/
Budweiser Red Lights US Website:
http://budweiserredlights.com/
Budweiser Canada YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/BudweiserCanada
Budweiser Canada WEebsite:
Budweiser Canada Twitter:
Budweiser Canada Facebook:
Budweiser Canada Google+:
https://plus.google.com/114669199986424808831/posts
