Coors Light faced a challenging March in 2021, down 10% ($10M) in sales despite excitement around return of the tournament. This was in part driven by increased competitive pressure in store from categories like hard seltzers, as well fans returning to out of home venues to enjoy the game.

If we wanted to be competitive and breakthrough in 2022, winning back share of game-day beverages, it meant we needed to create something ownable to Coors Light that tied us directly to enjoying the game.

Our challenge was to find a discreet way to make March Madness games more accessible to fans, even if they were on the clock and help drive them to our on premise partners - Buffalo Wild Wings.

The Coors Light Calendar Blocker: A social commerce experience that blocks your Microsoft Teams so you can support your team.

We teamed up with Buffalo Wild Wings, and targeted die hard fans on selected sports websites, encouraging them to visit our microsite, select their team and add their email address. We then sent discreet invites that blocked fans’ time on game day.

Joining Calendar Blocker meetings helped them turn their “available” status to ‘in a call’ — blocking unwanted attention from colleagues and co-workers.

Giving fans the perfect cover to make it to the bar and enjoy the action with secret March Madness deals.

During March Madness, there are 67 games, many of which are played during working hours. 48% of all workers spend an average of six hours of work time on March Madness activities throughout the tournament. It’s ranked third among tech-related office distractions, behind texting and Facebook.

When the tournament is on, it’s tough to focus on work and our shoppers find it impossible to get away from work and keep up with all the action from the big games. After all, their bracket, their team and their pride are on the line. Fans just want to escape from work, crack open a cold one and immerse themselves into the marathon of heart-racing and get- wrenching madness.

There is an opportunity to make it easier for them by bringing tip-off to them, so they can chill better during the madness.

We turned to an untapped media space - Microsoft Teams! our post-pandemic work-from-home social platform: A messaging app for employees where all conversations, meetings, files, and notes can be accessed by everyone, all in one place. It's a place for collaboration and work to happen in the open. Microsoft Team's interface is reminiscent of social media chat clients, like Facebook or Google Hangouts.

A hyper-targeted media buy directed fans to our microsite - all they had to do was select their team and add their email address. We sent discreet invites that blocked fans calendars on game day, changing their status from ‘available’ to ‘in a call’ blocking unwanted attention from co-workers with secret deals hidden inside each meeting call! Giving them plenty of time to make their way to Buffalo Wild Wings to enjoy their reward - deals embedded in the meeting invites, and giving

After a 10% sales decline in 2021, Calendar Blocker gave us a message to stand out from the competition and generate 12% sales increase at Buffalo Wild Wings, paired with over 10,000 unique site visits and 7,328 calendars were blocked.

That's a 71% engagement rate, and an effective 0% of employees got fired for giving in to the Madness.