Coors Preempts Happy Hour with Site Takeovers at Exactly 4:53 PM

Coors is trying to make 4:53 the new happy hour – or at least the new Coors moment. At precisely that time of day, when people are just starting to think about hitting the pub, the brewer’s Silver Bullet Train icon will careen across their field of vision. Or at least it will for individuals surfing certain sites (unnamed in the company’s press release). And as it passes, the old-fashioned yet new-fangled locomotive will resolve into a traditional display unit encouraging Web users to relax at the end of the day with (cue new tagline) “the World’s Most Refreshing Beer.”

The unique interactive ads are part of Coors Brewing Company’s 2007 campaigns for Coors Light, Keystone Light, Coors, Molson Canadian and Killian’s Irish Red, which also include new TV, radio, outdoor and retail advertising. Online execution was handled by Avenue A / Razorfish.

A story in The New York Times has additional details, including this comment on the trouble the agency had timing the ads precisely:

Creating and producing the online campaign “has been challenging,” [Account Director Levi Patterson] added, because of the need for “geo-targeting for the time zone you’re in” as well as trying to “push the envelope a bit” in terms of the train image briefly covering the editorial content of the Web sites.