Think Super Bowl ads are everywhere this year? What about in your dreams?

While Molson Coors (NYSE: TAP) won’t technically air an ad during Super Bowl LV, the beverage company certainly deserves extra points this year for creativity. Instead of a traditional ad buy, Molson Coors wants space in your REM sleep next week.

In a video announcing the campaign, Molson Coors points out that, due to the NFL’s exclusivity contract with a certain competitor that shall remain unnamed (Anheuser-Busch NYSE:BUD), it is unable to air a Super Bowl ad. The company teamed up with dream psychologist Dr. Deirdre Barrett to create the big game ad of your dreams.

Science in the Cloud(s)

Dr. Barrett, who looks and sounds a bit like Catherine O’Hara (but with considerably more clout than Dr. Clara Mandrake), is an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard University’s Department of Psychiatry and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Dreaming.

Dr. Barrett’s PhD is in clinical psychology, and she has written several books on the ephemeral subject, including last year’s “Pandemic Dreams” (which sounds like what happened to Fleetwood Mac last fall when one of the tracks from “Rumours” went hugely viral, thanks to a man, a longboard, and his cranberry juice).

“When Coors first approached me, they wanted to know if it would be possible to incubate an ad in a dream,” Dr. Barrett says in the video. “I told them that there is a way if you’ve got cooperative subjects to do dream incubation and influence their dream content.”

A Successful Trial Study

Coors Light and Coors Seltzer invited legal-drinking-age (LDA) folks to participate in a trial run of their unique sleep study. Participants were shown a brief, 90-second video clip several times before falling asleep. They were also told to tell themselves that they wanted to dream about the ad while they were drifting off to dreamland. An eight hour soundscape played in the background while subjects snoozed.

The result? Coors was totally able to incubate an ad in people’s dreams, or place the ad in the subconscious. Upon being woken up while still in the REM stage of sleep (ie: while they were still dreaming, in order to remember the dream), participants reported dreaming of waterfalls, snowy walks, and of course mountains – all images associated with Coors campaigns.

One subject reported having a dream about jumping out of a helicopter and skiing down a snowy mountain with his mom, which truly sounds like the ultimate Coors ad. What better way to taste the Rockies than skydiving into a ski jump?

You can Participate in the Study

Folks at home who want to experience their own Coors-inspired dreams are invited to participate in the “world’s largest sleep study,” starting February 3. Fans are invited to sign up for reminders of when the campaign goes live so they can fill their own pre-Super Bowl dreams with images of snow-peaked mountains, crystal clear streams, and plenty of Coors Seltzer.

LDA fans can also sign up for a rebate so they can stock up on Coors Seltzer before the big game. And that, friends, is the stuff of which real dreams are made. This offer is not available in AL, AR, HI, IN, LA, MN, MO, NC, TX, UT, or WV. 

Editor’s Note: Hard Seltzer News would love to hear from participants. Drop us a note with your experience and we’ll report the results after the Big Game!

Erin Grafton
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