Busch Beer, the “Official Beer of NASCAR®,” will be awarded the 2019 Marketing Achievement Award today at the NASCAR Industry Awards Reception during NASCAR Champion’s Week in Nashville.
Since returning as an Official Partner in 2018, the global brand has leveraged its Busch Pole Award platform, No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing partnership and track relationships to create distinctive content throughout the season to drive fan and media engagement around the Busch Beer brand.
“We take great pride in creating new and surprising ways to engage NASCAR fans throughout the year, so being honored with this award is a special achievement for our team,” said Nick Kelly, vice president partnerships, beer category and community, Anheuser-Busch. “Our partnership with NASCAR and the industry at-large has allowed us to do what we do best, deliver creative marketing that resonates with fans and drives consumption of crisp, refreshing Busch Beer.”
To celebrate 40 years of Busch Beer at the DAYTONA 500, Busch Beer developed the #Car2Can promotion for a chance to win one of 40 limited-edition Busch Beer cans created from Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Fans watching the iconic DAYTONA 500 on FOX were given the chance to “watch and win” via an on-screen social media trivia contest using the #Car2Can promotion hashtags. The social campaign generated more than 44 thousand mentions and 67 million impressions around the DAYTONA 500.
“Busch Beer continues to successfully drive consumer engagement by creatively integrating its assets from across all levels of its NASCAR sponsorship,” said Jill Gregory, executive vice president and chief marketing and content officer, NASCAR. “Hats off to our partners for galvanizing our brand-loyal fans across the season, and cheers to all they have in store for 2020.”
Fortunately for the fans, Kevin Harvick not winning the 2018 Championship meant Busch Beer would design a “millennial-inspired” paint scheme for the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race. Busch Beer crowdsourced millennial phrases on Twitter to create the one-of-kind paint scheme. Fans voted for words playing on millennial culture like “yeet,” “turnt left” and “#squadgoals” to adorn the pink race car. To unveil the car’s design, Busch created digital shorts starring Harvick as he learned the meaning of the phrases featured. The full campaign garnered a total of nearly 100 million digital and social impressions.
At Talladega Superspeedway, the beer company brought back its successful Busch Flannel Ford Mustang, donning the No. 4car with an outdoor-inspired flannel look. Harvick and the No. 4 team embraced the campaign with Harvick’s firesuit, crew members’ shirts, fan display and paint-scheme all adorned in flannel. The Busch Guy, also fashioned in flannel, was present over the course of the weekend and fans were able to shop a wide variety of flannel merchandise.
As the NASCAR Playoffs heated up, Busch Beer created a slapstick campaign around Kyle Busch getting “free” advertising through its Stewart-Haas Racing sponsorship. The company went all-in on Harvick, replacing the brand “Busch” within its traditional logo with “Harvick.” Busch Beer capitalized with a strong social media campaign along with broadcast integration, fan merchandise featuring “Harvick” instead of “Busch” as well as special edition “Harvick” beers cans that were sold in concession stands.
In addition to its sponsored Busch Pole Awards, which saw 14 different pole winners this season, Busch Beer incorporated tune-in messaging throughout all its programs. The beer company also included its “Official Beer of NASCAR” designation on all its national point of sale.
This is the first time Anheuser-Busch has been awarded the NASCAR Marketing Achievement Award. Previous winners include: Comcast; Coca-Cola; Fox Sports and NBC Sports; Mars, Incorporated; Mobil 1; and Toyota.
NASCAR’s Champion’s Week in Nashville will conclude with the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series™ Awards Thursday, Dec. 5 at 8 p.m. ET on NBCSN. For more information, please visit championsweek.nascar.com.
NASCAR PR
