The people who brew Michelob Ultra are counting on potential customers to crack open a documentary before they crack open a beer.
In Spring, the Anheuser-Busch InBev brand will launch “Lap of Legends,” a one-hour documentary special that spotlights the journey of Logan Sargeant, the popular American race-car driver. Sargeant will square off against avatars of popular Williams Racing racers from the past, and viewers will see him compete against rivals that use data and AI even as he drives in the physical realm. These “phantom racers” will be created using historical data of the drivers and their original cars.
The film will air via AMC, BBC America and Roku in April. Michelob Ultra is producing the content, and expects the film to be available in 28 countries.
Michelob Ultra executives hope that “Legends” “provides for a deeper connection with our target audience and gives us the ability to deliver our brand message and point of view in a much deeper way,” says Ricardo Marques, vice president of marketing for Michelob Ultra, during an interview.
Many big marketers have tried their hand at making entertaining vignettes that offer cinematic storylines while promoting products and services. BMW gained traction in 2000 and 2001 by launching a short series of films starring Clive Owen driving its vehicles. HP did something similar in 2017 with a web series called “The Wolf,” which starred Christian Slater playing what was billed as a “charmingly sinister hacker” in an effort to spotlight HP’s security technology. In 2022, HP Inc. tested the concept with streaming by launching “Unlocked,” a short film about data scientists hoping to track down a rare plant that might just offer a cure to a mysterious neurological disease that ails the world. The content was made specifically for NBCUniversal’s Peacock.
Michelob Ultra has tested content alliances in the recent past. As part of its marketing around Super Bowl LVII, the beer brand teamed up with Netflix to promote the golf documentary series “Full Swing” in a Big Game commercial. Michelob Ultra worked with Disney’s ESPN in 2022 on “McEnroe vs McEnroe,” which featured tennis legend John McEnroe playing matches against AI-generated versions of himself from earlier in his career. The program was made available via ESPN+. MSG Networks aired Michelob Ultra’s short film “Dreamcaster,” which examined the efforts of the blind sports enthusiast Cameron Black to become a sports commentator.
Such efforts seem likely to continue. “We see fans and our audiences spending increasingly more time consuming content in different ways,” says Marques.
