Corona Sunbrew provides a ray of sunshine for gloomy Canadians

The sun is the leading source of Vitamin D, so when Canadians lost an hour of daylight earlier this month, zero-alcohol brand Corona Sunbrew 0.0%—which claims to provide drinkers with 30% of recommended daily Vitamin D—saw a chance to shine.

“The combination of a hyper-unique product, a core brand belief, and the cultural relevancy of daylight savings—where we know people inherently have conversations around reduced sunlight and missing it—provided an opportunity we knew we could own as a brand,” said Sunbrew’s parent, Labatt, in a statement.

Working with Dentsu and Labatt’s in-house agency DraftLine, the “Missing the Sun” campaign ran during the evening rush hour, when consumers would be missing that hour of sun the most.

Knowing that the loss of an hour of sunlight is felt most acutely right after the clocks fall back, the media buy was heavily focused on the five days after the time change.

The campaign relied on contextually relevant placements including TSAs, digital boards in Toronto’s Union Station, and ads that ran across the Uber app for all trips originating in Toronto’s downtown core. Uber customers were targeted with three different messages from when their ride was dispatched (“Missing the sun, Toronto?”), to when their driver was en route (“Less sun. More Sunbrew”) and while on the trip (“Get sunshine anytime).

“Sunbrew having vitamin D gives us a relevance to the daylight savings conversation already being had,” said Labatt. “This hyper-unique product also being in the non-alcoholic category means we can explore sampling in a way we otherwise wouldn’t, encouraging trial in a new and tailored way.”

Labatt also delivered approximately 58,000 samples of Sunbrew to offices in downtown Toronto at 4 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 6, just as darkness was beginning to fall.

Chris Powell