Corona has a long-standing and positive brand association with the beach. For many Canadians however, this positioning has come to represent a very narrow definition of escape – leaving Corona’s top-of-mind awareness limited to trips to the Caribbean.

The initial answer to this challenge was to inspire in-the-moment escapes through playful contextual messaging. But simply talking about escape wasn’t enough. So in addition to a national campaign with a broad-reaching out-of-home component, an idea was needed that brought the brand’s core positioning to life in the place Canadians choose most for soaking up summer sun: the local patio.

By leveraging Corona’s brand ideal “Corona exists to radiate sunshine to our world” the challenge was to return the brand to its position as Canada’s number one imported beer through both brand engagement and sales growth.

As all of North America learned what a Polar Vortex was and cool temperatures dragged well into the beginning of patio season, the opportunity for a non-traditional approach to this on-premise challenge became clear. The team also realized that many bars had patios that – due to their location and surrounding urban landscape – were unable to take advantage of what little warmth and real sunshine there was in the first place. Canadians were craving more sunshine, and as the brand known as “sunshine in a bottle,” the idea was to answer the call with a tangible demonstration of that promise.

Given the long-term forecast for a cooler than usual summer, attention was focused on a way to enhance and prolong the patio season with a new kind of outdoor execution. Inspiration came from the town of Rjukan, Norway, a small community situated deep within an East/West-oriented mountain valley that receives no direct sunlight six months of the year. Their solve? A large heliostat array installed high on the mountain slope to bounce sunlight down into the town square.

Adapting their advanced engineering solution to work within the confines of an urban environment, the “Corona Sun Beam” was designed, developed and launched. It was a mobile sunshine delivery vehicle equipped with a 62-foot-tall telescopic arm and 240-square-foot reflector that could be adjusted via remote control. Once in place, the “Sun Beam” allowed real sunlight to keep shining on the patio, extending the warmth and glow well past the hour when afternoon shadows would have normally killed the mood.

The on-premise activations were supported by a brand video appearing on both YouTube and Facebook.

After only two weeks in market, the project had already generated over 2.6 million earned media impressions, almost 3 million social impressions and nearly 465,000 views (English and French) on YouTube and Facebook combined. The campaign also generated coverage in several industry publications, including strategy, Ads of the Word, Campaign and Fast Company.

And only halfway through the heavy consumption season, the on-premise activation and online video (in conjunction with the traditional mass and out-of-home campaign) helped contribute to a 17% share lift versus the previous year – effectively doubling the share gap between Corona and its nearest rival, Heineken.