Super Saturday and the new beer brand strategy

Last weekend was Super Saturday, the final day of the Guinness Six Nations Championships, where Scotland, France and Ireland battled it out for the trophy until the final kick.

Inside the stadiums, the bars were stocked and ready for fans throughout the event.

Outside, pubs across the country were booked up for the whole day of matches. The final wave of ads from the tournament was everywhere, with Guinness front and centre - only right from the tournament’s title sponsor.

This year, Guinness has also partnered with selected Greene King pubs, offering free pints to fans choosing to watch the Six Nations together. Activations like this are designed to bring supporters into pubs and make the shared viewing experience part of the tournament itself.

Beer and rugby: a long-term relationship

It’s no coincidence that beer is such an established part of rugby’s matchday ritual. The two have long been intertwined.

Whether it’s ordered before kick-off, raised during big in-play moments or shared after the final whistle, beer and rugby share a natural cultural synergy.

That relationship is reinforced commercially too. From pouring rights inside stadiums, where drinks brands pay millions for exclusivity – to pub partnerships and supermarket promotions timed around the Six Nations, beer brands have historically been deeply embedded in the rugby ecosystem.

For decades, the equation has been simple: rugby = beer, and beer = matchday. But that formula is now evolving.

A new evolution of the relationship

While beer brands remain synonymous with rugby, the way they show up around the sport is shifting rapidly.

Leading brands associated with the sport such as Guinness and Heineken are increasingly promoting alcohol-free or 0% alternatives alongside - or even instead of - their core products. In fact 53% of Guinness deliveries across the UK now consist of Guinness 0.0, according to Ocado, showing just how quickly consumer habits are changing.

At the same time, beer and alcohol brands are rethinking what sponsorship looks like. They’re no longer just sticking their name on a rugby kit anymore, or pub visibility and promotions on match day. They are showing up with emotive content, creative executions, meaningful sponsorship activations, and purposeful community support. And this shift is increasingly clear in broadcast idents, in-stadium branding and wider campaign messaging around the tournament.

The overly simplistic and out-dated, old-school “beer and rugby” message has all but died as brands respond to shifting drinking habits and try to capture younger audiences, particularly Gen Z, who are drinking differently from previous generations.

Every minute counts

At the same time, the way brands integrate into the broadcast experience is also changing.

Coverage of the Six Nations on ITV this year introduced in-game advertising placements during live matches. While common in American sports broadcasting, it’s still relatively new for UK audiences and sparked debate about whether brands were beginning to intrude too heavily into the viewing experience.

Ironically, this is where beer brands may have a natural advantage. Their long-standing association with rugby means their presence can feel more authentic than other sectors trying to force their way into the conversation.

Meeting fans where rugby culture lives

For drinks brands, it’s about going beyond logos and broadcast exposure to become part of the wider matchday ritual.

That means understanding where fans watch, how they celebrate and how they talk about the sport beyond the eighty minutes on the pitch. Increasingly, those moments extend beyond stadiums and TV screens into podcasts, social platforms and creator-led content.

Identifying specific communities, subcultures and viewing moments around the game where you can genuinely add value and make the moment count.

A good example is the recent collaboration we activated with the For The Love Of Rugby podcast - a “title partnership” of the podcast coinciding with the Six Nations, with our client Tesco Whoosh. While not a beer brand, the collaboration showed how a non-endemic brand can integrate into rugby’s viewing ritual by connecting with fans in the spaces where they already engage with the sport.

Turning sponsorship into participation

One beer brand that’s experimented with a new approach in recent years is another of our clients, Asahi Super Dry.

During last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, Asahi Super Dry built its campaign around a simple insight: women’s rugby is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, yet public perception hasn’t fully caught up with its momentum.

Rather than relying solely on traditional sponsorship visibility, the brand looked to show up where fans actually experience the sport, in pubs, fan zones and social environments.

By building content and activations across those spaces, the campaign aimed to make the sport more visible while embedding the brand in the wider culture surrounding the tournament.

The results will speak for themselves

As rugby reached another major moment that weekend, it was a reminder that matches were no longer consumed by a passive audience.

They’re discussed, debated and dissected across multiple platforms and environments. For beer brands that have historically been synonymous with rugby, the challenge is to evolve alongside the audience while staying authentic to the matchday experience.

The results from Asahi Super Dry show why this matters. By leaning into rugby culture rather than just its audience, the campaign helped increase brand meaning and drive a significant uplift in sales.

With the Six Nations Championship coming to an end at the weekend, the real value for brands didn’t come from simply appearing during the game, but from helping create the moments around it that fans actually want to talk about.

Alex Brown is head of sport & entertainment (UK) at EssenceMediacom, a part of WPP Media