WASHINGTON — Corona Cero last year became the first beer sponsor for the Olympics at the worldwide level. But the brand, which is marketed by Anheuser-Busch InBev globally but Grupo Modelo in the U.S., only had three weeks for creative sign-off. It also needed creative that deviated from familiar Olympic ad tropes around athletes overcoming adversity, different cultures coming together around shared dreams or the parents and coaches behind the athletes.
“Don't get me wrong: these are brilliant, but we knew that for a disruptive brand like Corona, and the first-ever beer sponsor of the Olympics, this sea of sameness was a strategic threat,” said Camila Marcondes, director and head of Latin America at consultancy Brand Genetics, during a Thursday (Nov. 6) panel at Esomar's Trends Horizon conference.
The consultancy worked with AB InBev and agency Grey to quickly determining a creative strategy that could work in two markets — the U.S. and Brazil — on the Olympic stage by using artificial intelligence (AI) to figure out what moves consumers on a deep human level.
The result was “For Every Golden Moment,” a campaign centered on a 30-second ad that draws parallels between everyday moments at the beach and historic moments at the Olympics, intercutting images of celebrating sprinters with people running into the surf and spinning divers with a wedge of lime being dropped into a beer bottle.
The campaign led to a 440% increase in volume growth for Corona Cero and helped cement the nonalcoholic brew as the fastest-growing brand within AB InBev’s portfolio. The effort also helped solve a core challenge for the brand: how to merge the sun-drenched relaxation of Corona’s world with the high-energy, fast-paced world of the Olympics.
“[The campaign] focused on that beautiful moment after the win. It focused on that shared exhale,” Marcondes explained. “It's the shift from intense focus to celebrating the victory with people who matter, and this allowed Corona to own a unique space that no other sponsor had claimed so far.”
AI-powered analysis
To create the campaign that would become “For Every Golden Moment,” the consultancy, agency and brand used AI-powered language analysis and psychological theory to zero in on the best creative approach.
First, Grey created four possible creative routes. Then, Brand Genetics applied its “DNA” model of behavior that (with some creative spelling) brings together the drivers of behavior, enablers that facilitate behavior and abilities of individuals, groups and markets. The consultancy also relied on motive matching, a union of campaign messages and psychological motives that it has found to be twice as effective as other forms of targeting, especially around driving consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Brand Genetics ran specialized tests of consumer groups to gather emotive language around Olympic experiences, applying a proprietary AI tool to uncover hidden motivations and emotional connections — a process that took seconds instead of weeks. The AI tool discovered three key consumer motives around the Olympics: esteem, communal achievement and the deep human need for belonging. But while AI found the signal, humans found the story.
“The raw motivational signal is the starting point, not the end point. Then a human strategist takes this why, and asks the crucial question, so what? They add culture, they add context, they add language, and they start to see that it's not just achievement, it's communal achievement. It's not ‘I want,’ it's ‘we want,’” Marcondes said of one of the motives.
AI tools then compared Grey’s four creative options to the consumer motives, finding the one — “Golden Moments” — that hit all three. Then, the team validated its prediction with traditional focus groups, which found the campaign to be more touching and authentic than other options. The effort also demonstrated how AB InBev can continue adopting AI as a source of information to combine with human intelligence.
“AI was helping us contextualize what people were feeling,” said Sebastian Schuliaquer, global director of premiumization insights and foresight at AB InBev, during the panel. “Two years ago, there were a lot of AI-generated campaigns, and it was very scary, because there was beautiful story with no soul. We needed to have that human element, and we found it in this space.”
New campaign, same insights
Along with its sales growth, “For Every Golden Moment” drove significant behavior change and relationship strengthening for Corona Cero, per Ipsos metrics cited by Marcondes. The strength of the campaign has led the brand to iterate on it for next year’s Winter Olympics in a recently announced effort, using the same insights as before, Schuliaquer said.
“The campaign is how we take a golden moment during the Olympics to a golden moment in the Corona brand world, so it was more or less the same thing,” the executive told Marketing Dive after the panel. “We have versions that are more winter heavy and some that they are less winter heavy, but it's still very relevant, and the main message is there.”
The new hero film features speedskater Irene Schouten and snowboarders Mark McMorris, Billy Morgan and Ayumu Hirano, among other athletes, alongside everyday people celebrating their own “golden moments.” The campaign launched with citywide takeovers in key markets featuring dynamic out-of-home and digital media and will expand to more than 25 markets worldwide with activations, sampling, experiential and trade programs.
The continued marketing focus on Corona Cero is yielding results for AB InBev. The company’s nonalcoholic beer portfolio saw net revenue grow by 27% in Q3 2025, led by the strength of Corona Cero, and AB InBev now leads eight of its top 14 nonalcohol beer markets. The category represents a key opportunity to develop new consumption occasions, leading AB InBev to invest and innovate around it, executives said on a recent earnings call.
“Nonalcohol beer, you can drink it anywhere, at any time, while Corona Extra is for the evening,” Schuliaquer said. “Corona Cero is more urban — you will see that in a new campaign about to be released — but it has to do with Corona Cero [being] consumed at any moment.”
