American Football and beer go hand-in-hand. And while professional athletes in the U.S. can affiliate themselves with alcohol brands, NFL (National Football League) rules prohibit current players from drinking, holding, or directly endorsing any form of alcohol.

That presents a bit of a problem for Coors Light when superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes is one of the brand’s biggest fans. Mahomes has loved Coors Light for years, acting as a sort of unofficial advocate for his beer of choice.

When the opportunity arose to work with Patrick Mahomes, Coors Light needed to find a way to work within the league’s rules to appear in a commercial for the brand. That’s where we came in. Our objective was simple: find a way to film a commercial for Coors Light with Patrick Mahomes.

Our idea was simple: make Patrick Mahomes the unofficial sponsor of Coors Light by becoming the official sponsor of The Coors Light—a flashlight (not a beer).

We planned to create a high-quality flashlight (weighing in at 12-16 fluid ounces, and made with steel as cold as the Rocky mountains…to use a random analogy). We then planned to film a product demo-like video featuring Patrick Mahomes in his kitchen as he endorses The Coors Light.

Knowing that Patrick Mahomes is unable to promote alcohol due to NFL guidelines, PR leveraged the creative idea and Patrick’s well-known, organic love for the brand to strategically announce him as the official sponsor of The Coors Light—not to be confused with a crisp, cold Coors Light beer.

PR executed an embargoed pitch strategy to top sports, food, lifestyle, ad trade & general news media prior to launching on July 13th to give journalists enough time to confirm coverage and draft their stories. A press release was issued on announcement day with a hero key visual asset of The Coors Light, alongside the :30 second video featuring Patrick Mahomes.

We filmed a :60 online video featuring Patrick Mahomes in his kitchen, heading toward the fridge. A scrolling super and VO explains that while we had the opportunity to film a promotion with Patrick Mahomes, we might have overlooked the fact that he can’t actually promote Coors Light, the beer. The good news? He’s not. Mahomes is promoting The Coors Light, a flashlight (not a beer). The film goes on to showcase a product demo of the Coors Light—100% flashlight, 0% adult beverage.

We also made The Coors Light available for purchase, with all proceeds going to Patrick Mahomes’ charity, the 15 and the Mahomies Foundation.

We launched the video organically on both Coors Light’s social channels and Patrick Mahomes’ social channels, leveraging the superstar’s reach to seed directly with football fans and the broader sports broadcasting world.

The Coors Light was an immediate hit. It spread like wildfire, working its way through not just industry trades but throughout the professional sports broadcasting world.

Coverage surrounding Patrick Mahomes and The Coors Light earned over 700MM impressions and the video saw over 1 million organic views.

The Coors Light sold out in less than five minutes, driving over 125,000 landing page visits and raising over $10,000 for the 15 and the Mahomies Foundation.

This campaign also brought significant awareness to our broader summer campaign with Coors Light, “The Official Beer of Everything Unofficial,” which drove a 5.2% sales increase versus summer 2021.