MiC is winding down 2013 this week with a round-up of the most-clicked stories of the past year. First up on the list of most-popular stories is a historic beer that made its first Canadian entrance in the second half of this year.
Molson Coors Canada announcing it would be bringing the brand’s historic Coors Banquet to Canada was MiC‘s fifth most-clicked story of the year.
The beer, which launched in the US in 1874, was brought to Canada earlier this year, promoting its presence with an OOH, print, experiential and TV campaign with media from MEC and Canadian creative adapted from Chicago-based Calvary. The Canadian launch followed years of social media pressure from Canadians who created a Facebook group urging the company to launch the brand in Canada.
Beth Montgomery, marketing manager, Molson Coors Canada, told MiC earlier this fall that supply of the beer was not able to keep up with demand this fall, with customers taking all the product from display cases as they were being set up.
Congrats to Molson Coors on this. I’m happy for them but as per the original press release and as per your “first Canadian entrance”, this simply isn’t true. Coors beer or Coors Banquet was available in parts of Canada (incl Ontario) for many years back in the 1980s and 1990s. It was brewed, bottled and canned here by Molson Breweries. 473ml cans of Coors were last available in Alberta…for the ProRodeo Finals and in B.C. in 1990. So, it may be the “first entrance” for Coors brewed in Golden, Colorado, but certainly not the first time Coors Banquet has been available in Canada. I still have all the different cans in my collection! Cheers for 200+ years.