Brief:
- Anheuser-Busch's Natural Light beer teamed up with Cash App, the mobile payment service developed by Square, on a cash giveaway around the Super Bowl on February 3. The beer brand "Natty Light" will disperse $53,000 across 151 fans through the payment app, helping them to offset their monthly student debt payment and free up funds for a Super Bowl party, according to a company announcement.
- Each winner will receive $351, the average monthly student loan payment, during the big game to "ensure nothing stops them from throwing that epic party and splurging on the seven-layer dip, an extra order of wings and another rack of Natty," the brand said.
- Fans over age 21 can enter the sweepstakes by sharing their party plans on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook from Jan. 22 through the end of the game. To qualify, contestants must add the hashtags #NattySB, #Sweepstakes and their Cash App username to their social media post. The beer brand also pledged to hand out $10 million over the next 10 years to help fans pay down student debt.
Insight:
Natural Light's promotion with Cash App will likely help to drive downloads of the payment app, which last year overtook PayPal-owned Venmo as the most popular in the U.S. by number of downloads, per Yahoo Finance. Both apps also face competition from Zelle, a similar app that is run by banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. The joint campaign between Cash App and Natural Light is clearly aimed at millennials and the oldest members of Generation Z who are more comfortable than older generations with mobile payment tech, and who are coming out of college with record levels of debt. The campaign also helps to showcase Natural Light's commitment to its loyal fans and social causes that influence their purchasing decisions.
The Cash App deal accompanies a 60-second Super Bowl commercial in five U.S. cities that have some of the highest student loan debt, including Columbia, South Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; Little Rock, Arkansas; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia. The ad, which builds on the Anheuser-Busch brand's effort to relieve fans of mounting college debt, will feature winners from last year's Super Bowl sweepstakes, highlighting the videos they submitted on social media describing their inspiration for going to college.
In addition to the Super Bowl ad and Cash App promotion, Natural Light also plans to re-run a sweepstakes this spring that originally debuted last year. The beer brand will split $1 million among 70 winners that post a video to social media by May 18 explaining their inspiration for going to college. They need to include a green dollar-sign tab found on limited-edition cans and use the hashtags #NattyStories and #Contest in their posts. Tapping into the common experience of paying off student loans, hosting the sweepstakes seems like a smart play by Natural Light to drum up some incentive for users to create and share videos on social media. Running the contest two years in a row suggests that last year's effort was successful in driving brand awareness and positive ROI.
