In 2023, Coors Light reached the #2 beer in Canada, even enjoying one week in the top spot. But considering beer sales remain on a steady decline, it wasn’t enough. Coors Light needed to show up in Canadian culture in a new way. So it did something it had never done before: bought Super Bowl ad space.

In Canada? That’s a big deal. For a long time, Canadians weren’t able to see Super Bowl ads (the best part of the game). When it looked there was hope for a regulatory change, a 2019 Supreme Court ruling shut it down. The Coors Light US spot, which brought back its iconic Chill Train after decades, was set to play on Canadian TVs for the first time. But we needed to make it real in the streets of Canada. It was time for Canada’s own Super Bowl win.

Coors Light’s star-studded Super Bowl ad resurrected one of the most iconic symbols of the brand: the Coors Light Chill Train, last seen on TV 12 years ago. So we teased it by bringing the train’s chilling effects to life. In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, Canadians from coast to coast woke up to a sub-zero spectacle: street lights and statues, benches and bike racks – all frosted over as the Chill Train made its way to the big game. Among the frozen freight left in the wake locals found game day essentials, Coors Light merch, and for the lucky few, tickets to next year’s Super Bowl. Canadians were suddenly living Coors Light’s ad instead of merely watching it.

It was time to flip the narrative that big-brand Super Bowl experiences are just for Americans and finally show Canada the love it deserves. But saying the Super Bowl is for Canada or putting an ad on their TVs doesn’t cut it. We needed a uniquely Canadian experience that transcended gameday, felt ownable to Canadians and drove engagement.

We zoomed in on our target audience of legal drinking age to 34+ Canadians and, keeping in mind the current state of the soft beer market in Canada, knew we needed to engage loyal beer lovers while sparking fresh interest from the new generation of legal-age drinkers.

Knowing Canadians are all-in on regional and Canadian pride, we brought the ad spot to life, sending it across Canada via a national online contest and three regional activations that established local relevance for media and consumers.

To create our sub-zero spectacle, we worked with a props fabricator to “freeze” entire city blocks. Street lights, statues, benches and bike racks were all covered in ice.

We even made each spectacle more relatable by strategically choosing locations that were iconic to each city: a hot dog cart in Toronto, for example, or a statue of a horse in Calgary, Canada’s cowboy capital. The experience transformed popular pedestrian centres, first appearing at Robson Square in Vancouver in early February. It then took over Stephen Avenue Walk in Calgary. Finally, just days before the Super Bowl, it showed up at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square.

The Chill Train left frozen freight in its wake too, from game day essentials to merch to tickets to next year’s Super Bowl. Media and influencers came along for the ride, treating each stop as an opportunity to talk up Coors Light’s Super Bowl savvy.

The Chill Train was Molson Coors Canada's most successful PR campaign. During the campaign, Coors Light was the fastest-growing beer in the market and saw a 13% sales increase (YOY vs. February 2023). We also saw an increase in Canadians searching for Coors in the lead-up to Super Bowl Sunday.

We changed the conversation through 451.7 million earned media impressions from over 1,400 media placements. The contest broke records too, gathering the brand's largest-ever first-party data haul, making it the most successful contest since Coors Light began collecting data three years ago. It also drove three times the brand's average quarterly website visitors and an 70% opt-in rate, far surpassing the 2023 opt-in average of 55%.

Coors Light outperformed its competitors, surpassing Michelob and Budweiser's social Share of Voice. And most importantly, more Canadians reached for Coors Light.