In time for Women’s Equality Day, Anheuser-Busch InBev's Michelob Ultra is backing female athletes with a $100 million investment.
The brand is promising that by 2025, 50% of its non-product-focused ad campaigns will feature female athletes or women's sports. All of its advertising, as well as its "Team Ultra" roster of influencers and talents, will show equal representation of female and male athletes.
The announcement comes alongside the debut of “Save It, See It,” a new campaign from Gut that encourages consumers to back female athletes on social media. It features a new ad spotlighting influential female sports personalities: L.A. Sparks player and WNBA Players Association President Nneka Ogwumike; basketball analyst and former NCAA athlete Andraya Carter and CeCe Telfer, LGBTQ+ advocate and the first openly transgender female athlete to win an NCAA title. Though the new spot doesn't say so explicitly, the ad appears to reference Instagram specifically, featuring what looks like the "save" flag icon that appears at the bottom right corner of posts on the platform. The overarching idea, however, is to garner support for female athletes across all platforms in order to increase the visibility that will help them achieve parity with their male peers in salaries and sponsorships.
The work is the first for the brand from Gut. Michelob Ultra also works with FCB, which created the "Courtside" experiential push, among other efforts, and Wieden+Kennedy New York, which was behind the Super Bowl ad starring athletes in their downtime.