NBA x MICHELOB ULTRA TEAM CANS
Reaching New Audiences at the Intersection of Art, Culture & the NBA
THE SITUATION
Becoming the alcohol beverage sponsor of the NBA for the first time was a big move. An opportunity for the brand to start to show up and connect with audiences that it was not reaching.
Now it was time to activate it. How could ULTRA both connect with the NBA’s 25 -40 year old diverse fan base and create a vehicle for growing sales in NBA markets?
Inspired by the design culture that surrounds the league from fashion to gaming we saw an opportunity to elevate the ULTRA can and make it a collectible for fans. Historically “team cans” are simple logo slaps. We knew that was not good enough so we decided to partner with artists that were creating at the intersection of sport, fashion and emerging culture and gave them space on the ULTRA can to create original team art.
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Sophia Chang
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Drake Cereal
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Cristophe Roberts
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Chuck Anderson
We then designed a system for the cans that maintained ULTRA’s identity while providing each artist an area of the can that would serve as a blank canvas to tell their team story.
The cans and artist team stories became the foundation for a 360 plan with a focus on earned media and hyper local team market activations.
Cans were distributed in each team’s home arena and local market C stores resulting in 100% sell through. The in market program had a halo effect on base brand cans resulting in a sales volume increase.
The sold out cans became a coveted collectible and ended up on secondary market sites including Stock X, ebay and G.O.A.T. for resale.
CLIENT:
MICHELOB ULTRA
PROJECT:
NBA TEAM CANS COLLECTION 01
DISCIPLINE:
STRATEGY
VISUAL IDENTITY
TALENT PARTNERSHIPS
PACKAGING DESIGN
CREATIVE ASSET DEVELOPMENT
