Busch awards free beer to NASCAR fans who tweet about Kevin Harvick

Brief:

Busch is offering free beer for a year to NASCAR fans who tweet about Kevin Harvick, driver of the Busch-sponsored stock car. The contest coincides with the Monster Energy Cup Series finale on Sunday, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
Whenever Harvick leads the race, fans who post tweets with the hashtags #Busch4Harvick and #sweepstakes will be entered for a chance to win the free beer and a limited-edition Busch can sporting Harvick's signature.
Busch will determine the number of winners by the final number of laps Harvick led in the race, which takes place at the 1.5-mile track at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The race is 400 miles long, giving Harvick multiple chances to lead and for Busch fans to win free beer.

Insight:

Busch's Twitter sweepstakes aims to keep viewers glued to their TV and smartphone screens as the NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series ends with the championship race. Busch has 75,200 followers, and likely will get a lift as those dedicated fans tweet about Kevin Harvick — assuming he manages to take the lead at least once during the race's roughly 267 laps. As NASCAR fans tweet about the race, they support viral publicity for Busch and extend its branding beyond its more limited following.

Busch has made Twitter a key part of its recent social media promotions and contests. In July, the beer brand challenged followers to a scavenger hunt, offering clues on Twitter that pointed its followers to a hidden store in a national forest. Fans who located the "Pop Up Schop" were given a chance to win a lifetime supply of beer, along with branded merchandise.

That scavenger hunt followed a similar challenge on social media, indicating that the campaigns have been successful for Busch. Earlier in the year, the beer brand celebrated the start of Major League Baseball's regular season with a social media contest to sponsor 10 recreational-league teams as part of its "Busch League" initiative.

Beer brands have run a variety of social media campaigns and contests to reach younger audiences who are more difficult to reach through traditional media, while cultivating deeper connections with their most ardent customers. Natural Light, another beer brand owned by AB InBev, last month hosted a Halloween costume contest that offered cash rewards to Twitter or Instagram users who shared pictures of their "real-life nightmare" costumes.

Miller Lite, a brand owned by AB InBev rival Molson Coors, ran a contrary campaign that urged fans to unfollow its brand on social media, an effort that Natural Light supported as the brands vie for market share amid a broader decline in beer sales.