Crown Royal Whiskey’s ‘Hydrate Generously / Water BOYS’ Ad Is First Ever NFL Spirits Spot

Exploiting the NFL’s new rules allowing in-game broadcast liquor advertising at the very first opportunity, whiskey brand Crown Royal bought the first slot in the first commercial break of the 7 September season opener between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots.

The Diageo-owned spirits brand ran a 30-second spot, called ‘Hydrate Generously | Drink in Moderation | Crown Royal Water BOYS (Beverage Offsetters at Your Service)’.

Developed by creative agency Anomaly (along with Taylor Strategy, VaynerMedia, starpower, Carat and Wasserman), Crown Royal’s fun commercial features is themed around an unspecified athlete training camp with a locker room setting, and it features waterboys playfully squirting one another, plus a coach with a tactics whiteboard for tactics

But, as per the revised NFL rules, football isn’t specifically mentioned and no footballs are shown.

Plus, the spot includes a responsible drinking by urging fans to moderate their intake and by supplementing alcohol with water (or, as the commercial’s voiceover says, “moderation and hydration”).

This hero commercial, part of a season-long ‘Hydrate Generously’ campaign, sees the brand remind fans to ‘drink in moderation’ and ‘celebrate responsibly this season’.

The spot links this to a CSR strand by urging viewers to help us spread the message by using the campaign #HydrateGenerously hashtag and sees the brand donate $1 (up to $45,000) to Waterboys.org (a charity linked to the Chris Long Foundation that aims to bring life-sustaining and clean well water to East Africa) for every fan post featuring the hashtag.

Diageo will itself donate an addition $45,000 regardless of the #HydrateGenerously hashtag usage numbers.

Diageo is also deploying real Water B.O.Y.S. (men and women) to distribute water at stadiums, tailgates, sports bars and in rideshare vehicles throughout the NFL season.

Diageo pounced on the opportunity as soon as the NFL announced the new rules in early June.

“We had to work fast,” says Sophie Kelly, senior VP of North American Whiskeys at Diageo. “This is a huge opportunity for us.”

Kelly adds that the NFL offer a kind of reach that is ‘hard to come by these days’.

Comment:

While rival liquor brands had already advertised during the NFL’s pre-season, this first official game commercial marks a potentially significant shift for the US spirits industry which now finally has access to NFL ad real estate and thus activating around the biggest sports and television property in the USA.

Of course, the marketers still have to tread a narrow path to advertise their way through the league’s extensive new regulations

The league has limited the total number of 30-second liquor commercials per game to four: with a maximum of two allowed in any quarter

Spirits ads are also forbidden from having a ‘football theme’ and they must also carrying a ‘prominent social responsibility message’ as peer the league new ad advisory released in June.

Surely, Crown’s commercial, with its waterboys stars, coaches, tactics whiteboard and training camp setting, shows spirits brands will go as close to the edge as possible straight from kick-off.

Diageo’s Kelly comments that “the core creative idea is all about riffing off sporting drills. Some of them will be familiar with anybody who has trained for any particular sport” and that the NFL “felt like it was fully acceptable.

Patron is another liquor brand to run NFL spots early in the new season: debuting its first football commercial during the season’s first Sunday-night game on 10 September.

While Hennessy also bought two 30-second ads in ESPN’s preseason in-game coverage.

Beer brands, have, of course, long had the NFL alcohol advertising field to themselves.

The league’s official beer brand, Bud Light, began its 2017 season activation with an inventive internet-of-things style, mobile app controlled branded beer glass that lights up every time the owner/drinker’s team scores (see case study).

It is also worth noting that despite the lifting of the liquor ad ban, spirits spots are still shut out of the Super Bowl itself – the year’s most watched TV event in the USA – as Bud Light parent Anheuser-Busch’s current deal with broadcasters NBC and CBS ensure it has exclusivity alcohol category ad rights for the Big Game

Links:

Crown Royal Whisky:

https://www.crownroyal.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CrownRoyal

https://www.instagram.com/CrownRoyal/

https://twitter.com/CrownRoyal

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_wmhQ2fs9nsCmw3srcYk0g

Anomaly

http://anomaly.com/

NFL

http://www.nfl.com/

https://www.nfl.com/now