A Declining Category: In 2016, light-beer sales were steadily declining as consumers turned toward heavier craft beers and newer, more novel hard seltzers.

An Ignored Brand: Michelob ULTRA gave consumers great “better-for-you” product attributes: 95 calories and 2.6 carbs. But neither the brand nor its product attributes had become particularly salient in people’s minds. If anything, Michelob ULTRA was just another “diet” beer that lacked cultural relevance.

A Bold Set of Objectives: We needed to find a way to not only make the light-beer category relevant again, but also to establish Michelob ULTRA as the superior choice.

An Ambitious Brief: Elevate the meaning of our superior light beer in culture, above the normal conversation about calories and carbs.

Our strategy led to the centerpiece of Michelob ULTRA and the agency's partnership: our creative platform, “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It.”

We elevated our product claim — 95 calories and 2.6 carbs — to transform Michelob ULTRA from a “diet” beer to the beer that athletes enjoy.

And as “the beer that athletes enjoy,” we’ve sparked a creative renaissance for the brand, bringing much-needed joy to sports culture.

When COVID-19 shut down the entire sports world, we brought joy to players who needed their fans with Courtside. We helped John McEnroe discover the joy he had denied himself with McEnroe vs McEnroe. We made joy more accessible by developing game-changing technology to help blind sports fans with Dreamcaster. And we reminded the hyper-intense F1 world of the joy that originally inspired drivers to race with Lap of Legends.

Our Strategic Process

This was a new moment for our partnership to redefine and elevate what Michelob ULTRA stood for. We aligned our brand values with the values that our audience of high-achieving, physically active Millennials stood for.

Arriving at the Insight

As fitness and wellness became more prominent in popular culture, we noticed it making a meaningful impact on Millennials. They took their fitness and health seriously, but they were almost too serious about it. In the pursuit of their gains, they were losing out on the more enjoyable aspects of life. The lifestyle was seen as being all work and no play.

Overcoming Challenges

This meant challenging the status quo in popular culture. A status quo telling people that they needed to sacrifice their enjoyment in order to be fit.

The Breakthrough Insight

Living an active lifestyle and enjoying yourself aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand-in-hand.

Our partnership created the beloved, iconic Michelob ULTRA that we all know and love today, transforming the brand and the business since 2016:

We’ve become the #1-selling beer in the U.S., as measured by on- and off-premise sales.

We’ve posted the biggest market share gains of any beer in the United States.

Our brand consideration grew +132% and social conversation about us grew +102%.

In the last 5 years, in particular, our sales volume has increased +41%.

In the last 5 years, our brand power — AB InBev’s most important brand health metric — has increased +13%.

By creating a new consumer behavior around enjoying a light beer alongside an active lifestyle, we reshaped the world’s perception of Michelob ULTRA and broke the boundaries of what a beer brand can stand for.