Labour Day has come and gone. The pools are closed, back-to-school ads have largely run their course, and Canadians are being subjected to a steady stream of ads for pumpkin spice everything. The stores are filled with Halloween candy and decorations, and the spectre of Christmas is already in the air.
But ever since the calendar turned to September, Coors Light has been reminding Canadians that there are still 21 days remaining until summer officially comes to an end on Sept. 22. The beer brand, which boasts that it’s “Made to Chill,” says it’s a waste for Canadians to completely disregard one-fifth of the season we spend nine months of the year anxiously waiting to arrive.
That’s the premise of a social campaign and contest from Citizen Relations called “#CaughtByCoorsLight,” which is inviting Canadians to tag the brand with pictures of people who have “fallen for fall” trends like pumpkin spice, decorative gourds or watching Halloween movies before October (and there’s no good time, ever, to watch 2021’s dreadful Halloween Kills).
A social video this week shows a woman busted for picking apples in September, with the caption saying “You can go apple picking in 15 more days, it’s still summer right now.”
“Every August, we see all things pumpkin spice take over our social feeds, but we find that premature because summer isn’t officially over until Sept. 22,” said Coors Light marketing manager Shivali Patel. “As the brand that’s ‘Made To Chill,’ we wanted to find a way to connect with Canadians online who may be ‘falling for fall’ too early and steer them back to the summer chill spirit of Coors Light.”
Patel said that the brand is hoping to generate earned social conversation regarding the official end of summer while encouraging the creation of topical, user-generated content that positions Coors Light as the brand that’s prolonging summer for Canadians.
“We know how quickly and widely pumpkin spice takes over media and social conversations at the end of August, and so we knew there was earned potential to intercept these conversations and remind consumers that there are still 21 days of summer in September that are usually forgotten,” said Patel.
The ads are running across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram until the official last day of summer on Sept. 22. Volt Studios handled social for the campaign, with paid media by Wavemaker.
