One alcoholic-beverage brand is truly embracing the soccer landscape in the US.
Truly, the hard-seltzer company owned by Sam Adams brewer Boston Beer Company, has been cracking into both men’s and women’s national team events since becoming the first hard-seltzer partner of US Soccer in 2022.
“We really viewed this [partnership] as something that was much more than just another sports deal,” Matt Withington, senior director of marketing at Truly, told Marketing Brew. “It brought Truly onto more of a global stage with a really engaged fanbase that brought a lot of energy, and it is one of the most inclusive sports in the world. For us, that was really the draw.”
The US fanbase for soccer isn’t known to be quite as ravenous as, say, Premier League fans, but the sport’s stateside audience is steadily growing, which Withington said Truly has been able to tap into, especially by teaming up with players.
Player power
Truly’s multi-year partnership with the US Soccer Federation includes working with both the men’s and women’s national teams at least through 2026, and last summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup was particularly attractive when the deal was being signed in 2022, Withington said. In addition to the significant reach that comes with partnering with a national body that participates in international events, Withington said, “there’s a lot of passion for soccer organically from our fans, so it felt like a very natural fit.”
To capitalize on that passion, Truly’s marketing team has sought to focus on ways it can “elevate the fan experience in-stadium and at home” with its partnership, Withington said.
The 2023 Women’s World Cup was the first opportunity to do so. At the time, Truly released a limited-edition hard seltzer called Orange Slices, which are “a quintessential halftime refreshment” for soccer players, Withington said. The brand also teamed up with US Women’s National Team captain Lindsey Horan, who plays professionally in France, to promote the flavor, which “sold out very, very quickly,” according to Withington.
The brand has partnered with players on the men’s and women’s national teams: In addition to Horan, Truly has worked with Weston McKennie and Tyler Adams of the US Men’s National Team, and, as of this year, Sophia Smith of the USWNT.
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Most recently, Smith, Horan, and the Truly design team collaborated on a limited-edition collectable can design for its Wild Berry flavor. It was available only last month for the SheBelieves Cup, an annual international women’s soccer tournament that the USWNT won for the fifth consecutive time this year, and while Truly declined to share sales numbers, the release was generally well-received, according to the company.
Fan assist
Truly has also worked with the American Outlaws, a US soccer fan group, as a way to further connect with fans. For the Women’s World Cup last year, they collaborated on creating a “soccer bar network” to help fans find spots to watch the games on TV, according to Withington.
“We have really tried to organically integrate our way into soccer culture in the US, and want to help grow that soccer culture, grow the fame of the players on both the US women’s team and the men’s team, and continue to support one of the fastest growing sports in the world here in the US,” he said.
While Withington said there’s no requirement that Truly split its spend or efforts evenly between the men’s and women’s teams, and the brand may skew toward one over the other depending on the year, Truly “probably shares our attention equally between the two” all in all, he said.
Already, Truly is planning for the 2026 Men’s World Cup, and it might also activate around this summer’s Paris Olympics, Withington said. (He declined to share more about what that might entail.)
So far, the US Soccer partnership has been “going incredibly well” for Truly, especially in terms of fan engagement with soccer-related content on social, he said. Engagement, both on social and with in-stadium activations, is the brand’s main KPI associated with the deal, according to Withington, as well as awareness of the partnership.
“It really comes down to, ‘Are we delivering fans things that get them excited and make them want to interact with our brand?’” he said. “That’s our primary goal here.”