It’s 5 o’clock (in the morning) somewhere. With the 13-hour time difference between eastern Canada and Beijing making Olympic primetime an early morning affair, beer will (mostly) not be an option.
But Molson has tapped into a new way of getting its products into Canadians’ hands as they cheer on Canada’s Olympic athletes at breakfast-time. The Official Beer of Team Canada has just introduced “Molson Maple Beerup,” a limited-edition product developed with agency partner Rethink that brings together two distinctly Canadian liquids: Maple syrup and beer.
The beer-infused maple syrups come in three flavours: Dark Grade uses maple syrup infused with Molson Export, and has a rich maple flavour; Amber Grade is infused with Molson Canadian and has a full-bodied flavour; while Golden Grade is infused with Molson Ultra and has a light profile.
According to Molson, each 540 ml can contains less than 0.05% ABV. That means it’s impossible to get drunk if you consume too much—although a sugar high definitely isn’t out of the question.
Beerup was made with syrup produced by Bretelles, a Quebec-based company that specializes in maple syrup products. Beerup isn’t for sale, though: Instead, Molson is giving it away through an online contest running from Feb. 4-17. It will donate $5 to the Canadian Olympic Foundation (up to maximum of $10,000) for every contest entry it receives.
The contest is being supported by paid and organic social from the Molson Canadian Twitter and Instagram channels, and will also be present on the official Team Canada site, Olympic.ca.
“As a long-standing and proud partner of Team Canada, Molson has been there for some of the most iconic athlete and fan celebrations of all time,” said Katie Rankin, senior marketing manager for the Molson family of brands. “These Winter Games are no exception. We’re still supporting Team Canada and Canadians can still ‘Rep Our Home’ with a Molson in hand, even at 5 a.m.”
Agency partners on the project include Wavemaker for media, Volt for social media and Citizen Relations for PR.
