mike’s Hard Lemonade challenged the idea of a challenger brand.

Challenger brands attack their competitors. But mike’s Hard Lemonade is inclusive and didn’t want to pick a fight. It wanted to join the party.

So instead of fighting South America’s biggest beer brands, mike’s partnered with them, by putting someone drinking mike’s in their ads. mike’s then shot its own ads on the sets of those beer ads, but from the mike’s drinker’s POV. The hard lemonade and beer commercials ran back-to-back.

Naturally, mike’s also brought hard lemonade everywhere beer went: events, social media, film, out-of-home, radio, e-commerce, and point-of-sale.

The campaign generated over 438 million impressions in Brazil and Colombia, and achieved the #1 sentiment score of any AB InBev brand in Colombia. In Colombia, the campaign generated a 213% increase in weekly mentions. At events like Colombian St. Patrick’s Day, people even created a new consumption occasion: They mixed mike’s into their beers.

Winning during beer occasions skyrocketed mike’s year-over-year growth. Before 2022, retailers sold mike’s in stores, but the brand hadn’t invested in a major marketing launch.

The campaign made an outsized impact: 1,625% sales growth in Colombia 192% sales growth in Brazil 93% sales growth incremental to beer sales in Brazil and Colombia $4:$1 return-on-marketing-investment

And growing sales also meant outselling other Ready-to-Drink brands. mike’s outsold Smirnoff Ice, its biggest RTD competitor in Brazil, for the first time.