Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes debuted his third annual Coors Light campaign on Wednesday.
"Everyone knows I’m a Coors Light guy,” Mahomes said in a statement. “And this summer we were cooking up something special.”
Since the NFL doesn’t permit its active players to endorse alcoholic beverages, Coors Light has once again come up with a clever work-around promotion.
This time Mahomes is on top of a Coors Light train during a blizzard as he gets ready to film a glitzy, high-action commercial when an on-set producer stops production to remind him of that NFL rule.
To preserve the commercial, they then decide to bury it in a high-tech time capsule, which won’t be viewed until he is finally able to promote Coors Light, at the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colo.
It took about five weeks to conceive the creative ad, and the spot was filmed on April 9 in Dallas, where Mahomes, a Texas native, spends much of his offseason.
Coors Light, which will feature the commercial on its social media channels, is also hosting the live event of the burying of the capsule on YouTube on Friday at 11 a.m. (EST), though Mahomes won’t be there.
“The fact that he can’t actually promote Coors Light due to contractual guidelines,” Marcelo Pascoa, vice president of marketing for Coors, said via an email interview, “presents a unique and fun challenge that we love ideating around.”
In the ad two summers ago, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes promoted a Coors-brand flashlight called “The Coors Light” instead of Coors Light.
Last year Coors Light came up with another amusing play on words and had Mahomes hanging out with the “Coors Light Bear.”
During a humorous part of this summer’s commercial, once they’ve been informed they can’t air it, someone on the set says: “What is the return policy on 10,000 Patrick Mahomes figurines?”
They’ve incorporated that as part of this year’s campaign by selling “a Redactrick figurine,” a redacted, pixelated figurine that cleverly hides Patrick’s identity — a nod to Mahomes being unable to promote Coors Light — for $75. The figurines will be available starting Wednesday at 12 p.m. (EST) at shop.coorslight.com, and proceeds go to the 15 and the Mahomies Foundation.
Not surprising, considering the two-time MVP is the face of the NFL, Mahomes is a popular product endorser of brands, including Adidas, State Farm, Subway, T-Mobile, Oakley (whose goggles he’s wearing during the Coors commercial), BioSteel, BOSS, CommunityAmerica Credit Union, Essentia Water, Head & Shoulders, Hy-Vee, Hyperice, T-Mobile, Whoop, AirShare and Throne SPORT COFFEE.
Pascoa described Mahomes as “super fun” and “one hell of a salesman.”
And he’s clearly a fan of the product. Immediately after winning Super Bowl LVII, Mahomes heartily acknowledged his affinity for the Coors brand.
In the victorious locker room at State Farm Stadium, Mahomes told Matt Nagy and then-Chiefs PR executive Ted Crews: “I’m about to hammer like 100 Coors Lights.”
Since then Mahomes won the following Super Bowl.
Pascoa hopes to continue Coors’ annual collaboration with the three-time Super Bowl MVP for years to come.
“We’re lucky to have an ongoing relationship with him,” he said. “As long as Patrick’s in, we’re in.”