2012 Silver Effie Winner
“Canhole”
Category: Small Budgets, Products & Services
Brand/Client: Keystone Light / MillerCoors
Lead Agency: Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide
Contributing Agencies: Trinity Brand Group, Razorfish, Saatchi & Saatchi
Strategic Challenge
Summer is THE season for beer: Billions of dollars are up for grabs and the competition for floor
space, incremental displays, and key customer activation is hotly contested.
The big dogs rule: Miller Lite, Coors Light, Bud Light, Budweiser and Corona rule the summer months,
which makes it difficult for smaller, below-premium brands such as Keystone Light to get any attention
from distributors or retailers. Typically, Keystone Light doesn’t get any more than a static sticker on the
cooler door to plead their case to shoppers.
Pricing challenges made it more difficult: Beer companies, including MillerCoors, have raised the
price of the below premium segment (closing the price gap) in an effort to get drinkers to trade up to the
pricier premium brands — which is their priority and vital to overall performance. However, this pricing
strategy couldn’t have happened at a worse time for a beer like Keystone Light. Our target consumers are
being hit hard with the sagging economy and now more than ever, they’re looking for even more value
while still trying to get out and have some summer fun with their buddies.
The overall challenge: In the sea of big name brands during the summer, how do we give a
smaller, below-premium beer a reason to be featured at retail?
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2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
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Objectives
Retail Objectives:
•
Increase point-of-sale orders from previous year. To steal share and drive volume in the
beer category, it’s critical to get “the system” behind your brand program. One of the most important
players in the system is the distributor. Distributors are king when it comes to executing programs at
retail since they only invest in programs they think will be profitable for their business. If they don't buy
into your program, it will never see the light of day at retail. The Keystone Light program in 2010 set a
good benchmark for a successful below premium program with just over 2,200 orders 1.
•
Identify on-brand cross-merchandising partner product(s) to improve the MillerCoors field
team’s sell story, provide added value to our retailers, and enhance the overall program for our consumer
in order to increase overall convenience store penetration.
1 – Source: MillerCoors POS Order Tracker, 2011
Consumer Objectives:
•
Stave off decline of the Keystone Light business in the convenience store channel by
stealing share, volume, and display opportunities from our key competitor — Anheuser-Busch’s belowpremium powerhouse, Natural Light.
•
Increase volume and distribution on 24-oz single serve cans in convenience stores as part
of a company-wide MillerCoors focus on single-serve items.
•
Increase overall Keystone Light brand engagement to help establish a purpose and
personality for Keystone Light’s new brand character (Keith Stone) in order to increase interaction,
acceptance and sharing by consumers.
Insight
Our target is a simple guy with simple needs. (We refer to him as “the Cruiser.”) He doesn’t
have a lot of money, so he’s learned to be resourceful and inventive with things he has on hand in
order to have a good time.
For him, a great meal is a frozen burrito, a bag of Doritos, and a warm hot dog right off the roller. He
enjoys the occasional fart joke and ribbing his buddy because his sister can kick his butt in Halo (with
one hand tied behind her back). He’s comfortable with who he is and values friendship over all else.
Did we mention that he’s built a fair number of beer pyramids in his day?
Once we understood our Cruiser and how he behaves, we needed to know what he does during the
summer. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research, we discovered his summer is all
about “Bro-ments.” He gets together with more friends, more often, during the summer. Above all else
our Cruiser values impromptu, memorable experiences that are the outcome of ingenuity and inventive
social occasions. In other words, he likes spending time with his buddies, telling jokes, not acting his
age – all while drinking beer. This is basic male bonding stuff we call Bro-ments.
The Big Idea
Bro-ments in a Box
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Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
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2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
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reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
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Bringing the Idea to Life
Our job was to facilitate Bro-ments for our Cruiser rooted in one of three pillars of the brand: Food,
Sport and Party. For this program, we started with our focus squarely on Party, but as the idea grew
we were able to leverage all three pillars – providing Sport and Food levers to round out the activation.
A fun, simple and inventive solution that all starts with our beer box: We knew we didn’t stand
a chance this summer if we didn’t give our Cruiser a little something extra and speak to his fun-loving
ingenuity and inventiveness. So we created a solution where every time he bought a pack of Keystone
Light, he also got a completely self-contained cornhole game to play. All our Cruiser had to do was
punch out the perforated hole designed into the box and use his crushed empty cans of Keystone Light
as “bags” to deliver hours of summer party and sport Bro-ments with his buddies. We aptly named it
CANHOLE.
Despite our goal of increased POS orders, we couldn’t rely on orders for a below-premium brand like
Keystone Light — even with an idea like CANHOLE. So we utilized the packaging to communicate our
innovation, creating an engaging, self-executing promotion that could live on its own — inventive and
ingenious…just like our Cruiser.
The idea had to get out there: Just because we had our idea, it didn’t mean our job was done. We
knew it was critical to spread the word about CANHOLE and let our Cruiser know we had his back this
summer.
The perfect partner: In our search for an on-brand cross-merchandising partner, it was
important for us to understand what the Cruiser was looking for during his trips to the
convenience store AND what would excite a retailer. Here, we leveraged our “Food” pillar, which
led us to Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. Why? Well, beef jerky is a high margin item in the store and
a good fit for our Cruisers’ lifestyle – and that’s good for the retailers. Jack Link’s had national
distribution in virtually all MillerCoors’ key convenience store customers – and that’s good for
distributors and the MillerCoors sales team.
Jack Link’s fun, irreverent Sasquatch (Bigfoot) campaign is a match made in heaven for the
“Always Smooth” Keystone Light brand front man, Keith Stone. Perhaps best of all, the bags of
Jack Link’s jerky could be used for playing CANHOLE. This brand fit allowed for a fully integrated
partnership where both brand characters and products were featured across the program
activation mix – and that’s good for everybody.
CANHOLE in the virtual world: We gave our Cruisers a virtual CANHOLE game in which they
could play Keith Stone or Sasquatch online. Once they played a few times, they quickly found it
was pretty tough to beat Keith or Sasquatch. So we offered special codes on all 24-oz singleserve cans of Keystone Light that allowed our guys to advance through the game and have a
fighting chance against our brand characters.
Get people in the store: Below-premium brands typically get very little media support.
However, we knew it was important to drive consumers to the stores so they could all get their
own CANHOLE game and enjoy their own Bro-ments. We used a combination of radio and OOH
billboards featuring the game to build awareness and drive traffic to stores. We also engaged
directly with our fans on Facebook to hear what they had to say about CANHOLE and pushed out
a Keith Stone CANHOLE video to all our loyal fans to increase awareness of the game and create
excitement with our consumers.
Effie® Awards
116 E. 27 St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
th
2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
property laws. This brief may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal use only. By using this site, you agree not to
reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
the Effie Awards.
Communications Touch Points
☒Interactive
☐TV
☒Retail Experience
☐Spots
☐Display Ads
☐Branded Content
☒Web site
☐Sponsorship
☒Digital video
☐Product placement
☐Video skins/bugs
☒Radio
☒Social Networking Sites
☒Spots
☐Podcasts
☐Merchandising
☐In-Store Video
☒In-Store Merchandizing
☒Sales Promotion
☒Retailtainment
☐Guerrilla
☒Gaming
☐Program/content
☒POP
☐Street Teams
☐Mobile
☐Tagging
☐Trade/Professional
☐Other
☐Wraps
☐Newspaper - print
☒Packaging
☐Buzz Marketing
☐Newspaper - digital
☐Product Design
☐Ambient Media
☐Magazine - print
☐Cinema
☐Sampling/Trial
☐Magazine – digital
☒OOH
☐Print
☐Custom Publication
☒Consumer Involvement
☒WOM
☐Airport
☐Direct
☐Transit
☐Mail
☒Consumer Generated
☒Billboard
☐Email
☐Place Based
☐PR
☐Viral
☐Other
☐Other
☐Events
☐Trade Shows
☐Sponsorship
Media Expenditures
Sept 2010 – Aug 2011
YEAR PRIOR: Sept 2009 – Aug 2010
☐Not Applicable
☐Under $500 thousand
☐$10 - 20 million
☐Under $500 thousand
☐$10 - 20 million
☒$500 - 999 thousand
☐$20 - 40 million
☒$500 - 999 thousand
☐$20 - 40 million
☐$1 - 2 million
☐$40 – 60 million
☐$1 - 2 million
☐$40 – 60 million
☐$2 - 5 million
☐$60 – 80 million
☐$2 - 5 million
☐$60 – 80 million
☐$80 million and over
☐$5 - 10 million
☐$80 million and over
☐$5 - 10 million
Owned Media Sponsorship
N/A
Effie® Awards
116 E. 27 St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
th
2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
property laws. This brief may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal use only. By using this site, you agree not to
reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
the Effie Awards.
Additional Marketing Components:
☒None
☐Pricing Changes
☐Couponing
☐Leveraging Distribution
☐Other (Please Explain)
Reach:
National
Results
How do you know it worked?
1) In light of the price gap strategy, stave off decline of the Keystone Light business in
convenience stores:
Retailer Objectives:
 Increase point-of-sale orders from previous year. Even with the self-executing
functionality, the CANHOLE program delivered more than three times the total point-of-sale
orders from 20102 – an incredible feat for a below-premium brand during the summer. Even
better, the response has been so positive that the distributors and sales team have asked for
CANHOLE again in 2012 with an even longer execution window through the fall. Due to the
excitement, additional programming dollars have now been budgeted to support bigger and
better solutions.
Total POS orders more than
tripled vs. 2010
2 – Source: MillerCoors POS

Order Tracker, 2011
Identify on-brand cross-merchandising partner product(s). The partnership with Jack
Link’s Beef Jerky is working and then some. Along with the POS orders that completely
integrated both brand equities and personalities, the distributors and sales teams responded
to the coupon offer with Jack Link’s Beef Jerky. 3.7 million orders were placed which is
more than double any value offer in Keystone Light history and enough for execution in over
50,000 total convenience outlets3. Prior benchmark was 1.7 million orders (a 218%
increase)4. Feedback from Jack Link’s is that it’s been one of the most successful
partnerships they’ve ever run. With the successful performance in 2011, Keystone Light
and Jack Link’s will continue their partnership in 2012 with the CANHOLE program.
Effie® Awards
116 E. 27 St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
th
2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
property laws. This brief may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal use only. By using this site, you agree not to
reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
the Effie Awards.
3 – Source: MillerCoors POS Order Tracker, 2011; 4 – Source: MillerCoors POS Order Tracker, 2011
Consumer Objectives:
 Stave off decline of the Keystone Light business in the convenience store channel.
Against all odds, Keystone Light is holding its ground in a declining below premium segment
in the convenience store channel. Share of below premium segment for Keystone Light is up
0.5 share points vs. 2010, while Natural Light is down 0.7 share points5.
Keystone Light gaining share
on Natural Light
5 – Source: ACNielsen latest 12 weeks w/e 8.13.11

Keystone Light grew total distribution – which is the total number of items available for sale
across the convenience channel by +0.70%, while Natural Light showed an overall decline in
total distribution points (-1.00%)6
Keystone Light growing
total %ACV selling, while
Natural Light is losing

6 – Source: ACNielsen latest 12 weeks w/e 8.13.11
Increase volume and distribution on 24oz single serve cans. In May – August, the 24oz Keystone Light Single Serve can SKU has grown in both total volume vs. 2010
(+28.1%)7 and total distribution points (+30%), compared to only +2% for Natural
Light8.
Keystone Light 24-oz can total
distribution up 30% during
promo period!
Effie® Awards
116 E. 27 St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
th
2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
property laws. This brief may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal use only. By using this site, you agree not to
reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
the Effie Awards.
7 - Source: MillerCoors Scorecard - ACNielsen 2 month performance w/e 8.13.11; 8 – Source: ACNielsen latest 4 weeks w/e
8.13.11

Increase overall Keystone Light brand engagement: Not only did we meet our volume
and distribution objectives, the program delivered on the brand objective as well with
overwhelming system support and consumer response that actually increased brand
awareness and engagement. The overall brand awareness is up 10 points vs. prior year
(April – June) and is beating Natural Light by 18 points9. Keystone Light gained
approximately 160,000 new fans from May to August and is now the most engaging
MillerCoors brand on Facebook10. Online, consumers averaged 10 minutes playing the
game (a good benchmark is 1 minute)11 and over 3,900 codes9 from the single-serve cans
were redeemed online (20% of consumers who played the game redeemed the code).
9 – Source: MillerCoors Consumer Metrics Scorecard BP M21-60; 10 – Source: MillerCoors Digital Scorecard, 2011; 11 –
Source: MillerCoors POS Order Tracker, 2011
Why are these results significant?
Why was this big for MillerCoors? We held our ground (as compared to our enemy, Natural Light)
under less-than-ideal market and category conditions including:
•
Below-premium price increase strategy – Keystone Light, along with other below-premium
brands, is “taking one for the team” in order to get consumers to trade up to premium brands like
Miller Lite and Coors Light.
•
Keystone Light’s primary channel (Convenience stores) is losing trips to other channels such
as grocery and supercenter.
Anything else going on that might have helped drive results?
No other factors.
Effie® Awards
116 E. 27 St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016
Tel: 212-687-3280 Fax: 212-557-9242
th
2012: The information available through effie.org is the property of the Effie Awards and is protected by copyright and other intellectual
property laws. This brief may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal use only. By using this site, you agree not to
reproduce, retransmit, distribute, sell, publicly display, publish or broadcast the information to anyone without the prior written consent of
the Effie Awards.