The Background: Michelob ULTRA’s relevance in sports has helped us grow from the #5 domestic beer to #1 in the U.S. But with billions of marketing dollars spent each year, competition never ends in the beer category. You need to consistently strengthen your cultural relevance.

Our Objective: So, to continue growing our market share, we set out to address another pressing, hyper-relevant issue in sports culture: accessibility.

Our Brief: Since most people focus on the accessibility of playing, we championed the under-discussed accessibility of enjoying sports as a fan.

We put real-time data at the heart of our idea that broke the boundaries of accessibility.

Cameron Black is a blind sportswriter who had always dreamed of commentating live sports on TV. But he never thought his dream was achievable because of his blindness.

So we made his dream come true. We developed a groundbreaking, multisensorial technology that translated the billions of real-time data points in a basketball game into an immersive language he could easily understand through spatial sound and haptic touch.

With the help of basketball data inputs and generative A.I., he felt every gameplay moment and movement.

Soon, Michelob ULTRA will make this technology available to fans in every NBA arena, putting data at the heart of our commitment to accessibility for sports fans.

Data Gathering and Interpretation: The action of a live basketball game is easily operationalized through real-time data. So we used that data as an input into our immersive-feeling experience for visually impaired fans.

Our Target: 284 million blind or visually impaired sports fans worldwide struggle to enjoy live games. They can listen to commentary, but anyone who loves basketball knows the joy of the game goes beyond what you can hear.

Insight: The joy of being a basketball fan comes from truly feeling the game.

Strategy: Translate the action of a basketball game into a language that blind and visually impaired fans can feel, not just hear.

Background & Context

Michelob ULTRA believes you should be able to be physically active AND enjoy a low-calorie beer afterward.

Our brand platform, “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It,” has brought this belief to life in groundbreaking and culturally relevant ways over the last few years, addressing issues such as burnout, fans being shut out of games during COVID lockdowns, and more. Our relevance in sports has helped us become the #1-selling beer in the U.S.

But with billions of marketing dollars spent each year, competition never ends in the beer category. You need to consistently be culturally relevant to continue growing your sales.

Creative Challenge

We couldn’t just join an existing conversation in sports culture. As a beer that’s known and loved by fans and athletes all over the world, we needed to start a new, pressing conversation in sports culture ourselves.

The Solution

We started a new conversation about accessibility in sports. But instead of focusing on the accessibility of playing sports, like most other brands and sports media figures, we focused on an under-discussed type of accessibility: the accessibility of enjoying live sports as a fan.

Execution

Cameron Black was born blind. But it didn’t stop him from having big dreams of becoming a sports broadcaster.

On April 21, 2023, Michelob ULTRA made his dream a reality. We worked with Cameron over the course of a year to develop a groundbreaking, multisensorial technology that translated the billions of data points in a basketball game into an immersive language he could feel through spatial sound and haptic touch.

He truly felt every movement and moment of gameplay. Our technology informed his commentary as he became the first blind person to commentate a live NBA game on TV.

Our partnership with Cameron during the NBA Playoffs was the start of a larger commitment to accessibility. Soon, Michelob ULTRA will make Dreamcaster technology available to fans in every NBA arena, making the joy of live sports more accessible.

In a studio across the street from Madison Square Garden, we set up a multisensorial booth from which Cameron could commentate the game, 60 seconds ahead of broadcast.

This was made possible by a groundbreaking technology. First, using A.I.-powered braille, we put a world’s worth of basketball data at Cameron’s fingertips. Then, we used spatial sound to sonically place Cameron in the center of the court, so he could fully grasp every second of the game: the movement, the plays, and the speed.

And in partnership with MSG Networks, Cameron’s historic moment aired on prime-time TV, for millions of people to see.

Dreamcaster quickly became Michelob ULTRA’s next cultural juggernaut.

Cameron’s historic data-driven broadcast notched the second-highest TV ratings of any program in its market that day, immediately captivating 10.4 million viewers.

And his data-driven commentary echoed throughout the most iconic arena in the world: Madison Square Garden. 21,000 fans and passersby outside witnessed sports history being made.

But the impact for Michelob ULTRA goes beyond a local gameday broadcast activation.

Within days of Dreamcaster going live, organic search volume for Michelob ULTRA jumped 55% and social conversation about Michelob ULTRA increased by 44%.

And within 2 weeks of Dreamcaster going live, our unit sales grew +19%, our sales per shopping trip grew +15%, our dollar sales grew 3%, our frequency of purchase grew 4%, and our household penetration grew 1%.