In a category where its top rival spends twice as much, Miller Brewing has carved out its place in the sports landscape through mainstream and mass-appeal platforms such as NASCAR and the NFL, and nontraditional properties like mixed martial arts and poker.
Miller’s stated strategy is not necessarily to spend widely, but to spend deeply in sports, whatever the property. “Better” rather than “bigger,” the company’s executives like to say.
That was clear with Miller in both the NFL and NASCAR in 2007. Miller Lite secured local sponsorships with five NFL teams — the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings — as well as a national NFL-focused sponsorship with ESPN.
Miller Lite used its branded Party Decks across the league to entertain more than 7,500 guests during the NFL season. The Party Decks offer special seating, promotional activity, and food and beverage. Through its Falcons deal, Miller Lite will establish its own branded ATL Lounge in the Georgia Dome, while an End Zone Party Deck is on its way to Minnesota thanks to Miller’s deal with the Vikings.
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This month Miller became the official beer of Westgate City Center, a mixed-use development in Glendale, Ariz., that includes Jobing.com Arena, University of Phoenix Stadium, a hotel, convention center and movie theater.
“Fundamentally, it’s a local business. It’s all about creating an emotional attachment to the consumer,” said Dockery Clark, Miller’s director of sports and alliance marketing.
In NASCAR, where Miller Lite sponsors Penske Racing’s No. 2 car driven by Kurt Busch, the beer capitalized on Busch’s Chase for the Sprint Cup with a national consumer promotion dubbed Miami Lites that gave away trips to the season finale at Homestead.
“For more than 25 years, Miller Brewing has been an outstanding partner,” said Jonathan Gibson, vice president of marketing at Penske Racing. “Through its differentiated marketing programs and superior execution, they continue to develop programming that provides tangible business results with their retailers, distributors and consumers.”
Miller Lite’s Party Decks also proved to be a hit in NASCAR, where the brewer opened its latest branded entertainment area at Chicagoland Speedway in 2007. The brand’s Rock ’n’ Racing concert series drew crowds as large as 25,000 to see Montgomery Gentry and Kid Rock perform after races, and applied the program to the Indianapolis 500 as well.
Miller Lite also found a home in soccer in 2007 with its first year as the exclusive beer sponsor of the Gold Cup. The competition featured national teams from North and Central America and ran through three weeks in June at several U.S. venues before finishing at Soldier Field in Chicago. It provided a platform to reach Hispanics through local soccer festivals, on-site activation, custom TV advertising and a Web site that offered online soccer gaming.
Outside the mainstream sports, Miller brands found new consumers in some less likely places. The Mickey’s brand’s run as the official beer of the Ultimate Fighting Championship ended after 2007, but not before the brand established a loyal legion of fans and contributed to overall sales growth. The brand tapped into the UFC’s growing fan base by featuring top UFC fighters on its cans and point-of-sale material, and using on-site execution featuring the scantily clad Mickey’s girls.
In the World Series of Poker, Milwaukee’s Best Light created a presence with a promotion that allowed consumers to actually compete in a WSOP event. Miller found a strong blue-collar, no-nonsense beer-drinking crowd among WSOP viewers and has used the platform to grow sales of the value brand.
Focus on being smart and nimble.
