Molson Coors

Reinvention to remain relevant

Context

Despite the rise of craft, flavored malt beverages, and imports, $7.7bn in revenue leaked out of the beer industry in just five years. In such a broad – and increasingly blurry – category, the Molson Coors brand was losing market share to new category offers. Especially with rising consumer concerns around health & wellness and social consciousness, Molson Coors needed to make significant changes to stay relevant.

Challenge

In a changing consumer landscape, we knew we had to enable the shift from “brewing company” to expansive “beverage company” to meet the moment. To do this, we needed to develop a broader innovation pipeline that included transformative propositions for sustainable growth.

Feel-good future-proofing

Clarity

We wanted to focus on 2 things to future-proof the innovation pipeline: relevance and experience. Any innovation offerings needed to appeal to shifting consumer desires for “better for you” products, trend-forward ingredients, and more local & sustainable options. Molson Coors had also historically focused on taking elements out of their products – like stripping away calories or alcohol percentages – instead of considering how to add to the overall experience. Through consumer interviews and rigorous qualitative analysis, we found one big idea: Consumers just want to feel good about what they drink. This simple fact carried so many brand and portfolio implications that we knew it had to sit at the center of our innovation process.

With this in mind, we discovered, sized, and validated 8 commercially viable opportunity platforms across 3 growth terrains.

Impact

3 new brands – Vizzy, HUZZAH, and Verywell – launched the following year, with Molson Coors’ President and CEO projecting that its emerging growth division would deliver $1bn in revenue by 2023.

– HUZZAH was named one of the top 5 “Innovations of the Year” (Beverage Industry)
– Vizzy made Nielsen’s Top 10 Growth Brands list. It became one of the fastest-growing hard seltzer brands in the category, with the highest repeat purchase rate amongst all seltzers made by the major beer manufacturers in its launch year. Since then, it’s:

– Climbed up to the #5 position on Nielsen’s list.

– Entered into a partnership with the Professional Pickleball Association to become the exclusive hard seltzer of pickleball.

– Capitalized on the nostalgia trend with an Orange Cream Pop flavor that sold more than $5.7m of product in 13 weeks.