Coors Light's anti-Valentine's Day push supports dog adoption via SMS

Brief:

Coors Light is urging mobile users to celebrate Valentine's Day in a non-traditional way, offering to cover some of the fees to adopt a dog from a shelter. By texting "COORS4k9" and a picture of their adoption receipt to 28130, the first 1,000 eligible smartphone users will be given $100 to cover those fees, per an announcement from the beer brand.
The dog adoption program is part of Coors Light's "Made to Chill" campaign that started in August. With the approach of Valentine's Day, the beer maker extended the effort with a 15-spot that premiered during the Grammy Awards. The ad also is running during the first five weeks of ABC's "The Bachelor" and before Twitter posts from the reality show, a blog post by parent company MillerCoors details.
The commercial is the first of several "Made to Chill" ads the beer brand plans to run this year. Coors Light has been tweeting about animals for the past week with references to the "Puppy Bowl," the Animal Planet show that mimics the NFL's Super Bowl.

Insight:

Coors Light's mobile dog adoption promotion helps to support the extension of its "Made to Chill" campaign in the lead-up to Valentine's Day. Spending for the February occasion is forecast to surge 32% to a record $27.4 billion from the prior year on the momentum of a stellar holiday season and economic growth, the National Retail Federation (NRF) predicts.

Generation Z makes up the biggest spenders of any generation on Valentine's Day gifts for pets, followed by millennials, a separate NRF study found. Coors Light's dog adoption campaign can capture that spirit while reaching young adults who have tended to avoid beer consumption because of health concerns, reports suggest.

The beer maker's ad also features a contrarian tone toward Valentine's Day with the 15-second spot that shows a young woman cracking open a cold beer while relaxing on the couch at home with her dog. The spot ends with the tagline, "The Official Beer of Skipping Cuffing Season," a reference to the tendency of some singles to couple off during the winter months. That theme targets the 64% of 18- to 36-year-olds who think Valentine's Day is overrated, per a study last year by researcher YPulse. However, people ages 25 to 34 were the biggest spenders of any group during the occasion two years ago, per the NRF, which also found that younger adults tended to choose non-traditional gifts like experiences. Coors Light's pet adoption campaign is consistent with that theme.

The contrarian Valentine's Day promotion mirrors a recent effort by Burger King that celebrates breakups. The burger chain is working with Warner Bros. Pictures on a campaign timed with today's release of "Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)." Consumers in select cities can bring a printed photo of their ex and drop it in a "Birds of Prey"-themed breakup box in exchange for a free Whopper. Other brands are looking to keep the Valentine's Day flame alive, such as Kraft's campaign for its new Macaroni & Cheese Big Bowls the urges parents to feed their kids and get them to bed before enjoying a romantic evening.