Why This Brewer Let Other Brands Take Over Its Bottle Caps

Bottle caps are valuable brand space—the one flat, metal surface on otherwise curved glass packaging. Perfect circles waiting to be artfully designed, they’re like stickers for the drinking crowd. They’re also easily saved—it’s no wonder people collect them.

Now, Colombia’s Aguila Beer is giving up its caps for a good cause. 

The AB InBev brewer has launched “The Beer Cap Project,” an initiative in which it’s letting other brands like UberEats, KFC, Papa John’s, the Hard Rock Café, Uber and Cabify put their own branded caps on bottles of Aguila. 

Turns out it’s a responsible-drinking campaign. All the brands involved are food, water or transportation brands. Food and water help mitigate the effects of alcohol, and brands like Uber and Cabify, of course, help you get home without driving after a night on the town.

What’s more, the caps offer discounts on products and services from the featured brands, making it more appealing to make good choices while drinking. This page shows the various caps, and the offers underneath them.

The campaign was devised by MullenLowe SSP3. 

“Each year, the beer industry spends billions of dollars to promote responsible drinking, but binge drinking is still a huge problem around the world,” says the agency’s chief creative officer, Carlos Andrés Rodríguez. “Experts have found that consuming water while out, eating and going home earlier are all ways to drink responsibly, so we wanted to do something that has never been done before and remove Aguila’s logo from the caps and give this space to other brands.”

AB InBev is using billboards outside Colombia to call on other brewers to join in what it’s calling the “movement” of The Beer Cap Project. See some of those ads below. 

Dublin

Amsterdam

Tokyo

Czech Republic

“AB InBev are totally committed to leading new initiatives that aim to highlight the responsible consumption of alcohol that truly bring about real societal change,” adds Thor Borresen, marketing vp for AB InBev Colombia. “For ‘The Beer Cap Project’, we wanted to take advantage of Aguila’s strength in Colombia to reach leading beer brands around the world and promote a universal message to educate people to consume alcohol responsibly.”

CREDITS

MullenLowe SSP3
CEO: Francisco Samper 
Chief Strategy Officer: Carolina Mejía 
Chief Operations Officer: Juan Pablo García 
Chief Creative Officer: Carlos Andrés Rodríguez 
Creative Directors: Juan David Pardo and Diego Alejandro Muñoz
Art Directors: Julián Olivares, Laura Arcila, Diego López, Juan Camilo Contreras, Juan David Monroy
Copywriters: Melissa Reyes and Daniela Kopp
Business Director: José Manuel Hoyos
Account Executives: Jennifer Boshell, Sebastián Salazar Silva and Sebastián Castillo
Earned Media Specialist: Daniela Rodríguez 
Planner: Manuela Roa

Zenith
Media Account Director: Andrés Camilo Alvarado
Planner Senior: Jenny Gómez

Dattis
CEO: Andrés Ortiz 
Vicepresident: Camila Gómez
PR Marketing Director: Gabriela Sarmiento
PR Marketing Analist: María José Correal

Aguila Beer
Brand Manager Director: Miguel Merino
Brand Manager: Ana María Ordoñez
Brand Manager: Juan Alonso Torres
Project Manager Lead: Sara Donado
Project Manager, Digital Products: Santiago Osorio 
Back End Developer Specialist: Freddy Benavides
Web Developer: Sergio Bernal