Molson Coors’ Michelle St. Jacques Revived Coors Light

Imagine walking into the first day of your new role as a CMO to find your biggest rival has used a Super Bowl ad to declare war over ... corn syrup. That was Michelle St. Jacques’ introduction to Molson Coors in 2019. Navigating the great corn syrup marketing kerfuffle of 2019 didn't deter St. Jacques from her mission as the newly appointed CMO, which was to course correct its portfolio of brands because they "weren't winning at the time," she recalled. St. Jacques and her team quickly laid out a vision for the brand and a mantra to back its work: Molson Coors wanted to "build brands that more people want to hang out with," she said. Over the past five years, she turned her attention to rejuvenating Coors Light, building a successful portfolio of alternatives to beer and investing in first-party data that resulted in a new level of creative effectiveness for the brand. Coors became St. Jacques' top priority. "It's not about reinventing the wheel; it's what's the truth about our brand and our product?" she said. St. Jacques found that truth in its "Made to Chill" tagline, which led to early campaigns like "The Official Beer Of." One iteration of the spot featured Coors as the "official beer of taking your bra off." It was the brand's first spot with a woman as the protagonist and tapped into the insight "that women were like, 'Hell yeah, that's me. I know that feeling,'" St. Jacques said, adding that the brand made sure those ideas would appeal to everyone with the same sentiment around refreshing their spirit. I believe in big, bold, creative ideas and agency partners, but I always believe that needs to translate into results and effectiveness.Michelle St. Jacques The "Made to Chill" success led to more splashy work like its award-winning "Chillboards" campaign, which turned roofs into billboards by painting them white to cool them down and used a new font and the bare minimum of black paint to spell out a message for the brand. The brand later released a popular stunt where Patrick Mahomes touted the "Coors Light" flashlight to get around NFL rules preventing Mahomes from repping Coors Light beer. The work culminated in the company's first Super Bowl spot in decades, which pitted Coors Light against Miller Lite. Between the success of "Made to Chill" and the “Tastes Like Miller Time” platform, both brands had their strongest years in a decade in 2022, gaining share in the marketplace. Alcohol trends have led some consumers away from beer and into seltzers, where St. Jacques’ team began asking the question, "How can we get tap into different occasions and needs that consumers have?" A partnership with The Coca-Cola Company resulted in multiple iterations that gave Molson Coors a foothold into different "spiked" and "hard" drinks like Topo Chico Hard Seltzer and Simply Spiked Lemonade. The success of these drinks propelled Molson Coors to eight consecutive quarters of top-line growth and St. Jacques into a new role at the company: chief commercial officer. The growth is rooted in first-party data and measuring creative effectiveness. "I believe in big, bold, creative ideas and agency partners, but I always believe that needs to translate into results and effectiveness," St. Jacques said. Value Add According to Brand Finance, Miller Light’s brand value—the present value of earnings specifically related to the brand—accounts for almost 56% of the company’s enterprise value. Meanwhile, Coors Light’s brand value represents 60% of that brand’s enterprise value, demonstrating the power of brand in the category. And in four years, she got results: First-party data collection, which drives the insights of its bold ideas, soared 353% in 2022. PR impressions ballooned tenfold from 3.6 billion in 2018 to 35 billion by 2022. And to cap it off, the brand topped the Effie Index as the most effective marketer in North America last year. "This is evidence of how we've tried to build this model of building brands that more people want to hang out with in a way that both fosters creativity and the service of results," she said. This story is part of Adweek’s Brand Genius 2023 honors, recognizing the top marketers who have delivered long-term success for some of the world’s leading brands. UPS’ Kevin Warren Transformed the Stodgy Brand Into Something ‘Unstoppable’

Brand Genius

Molson Coors’ Michelle St. Jacques Revived Coors Light and Elevated Creative Effectiveness

The Brand Genius honoree helped her company ‘build brands that more people want to hang out with’

Jameson Fleming

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Jameson Fleming