Hadley Schafer, vp of Crown Royal at Diageo, talks big rigs, the brand’s purple motif and connecting with the heartland
The Crown Royal Rig is getting a lot of mileage. Launched at the start of the 2024 NFL season, the purple, branded 18-wheeler originally set out to tour NFL stadiums and U.S. cities with a tailgate experience rooted in whisky and generosity. Crown Royal invited football fans to participate in its Purple Bag Project by packing its signature purple bags as care packages for distribution to soldiers and veterans through military charity organization, Packages from Home.
The NFL season tour ended with a stop in New Orleans during Super Bowl LIX weekend, but the Crown Royal Rig (built by Proof) is showing no signs of stopping. It’s been on the road since September 2024, and the brand’s goal is to keep it going throughout the year, finding the right spaces for it to show up to tap into cultural moments and events, says Hadley Schafer, vp of Crown Royal at Diageo. The rig made a special stop at the CMA Awards in November, a precursor to its 2025 route, joining country singer Kane Brown on his “The High Road Tour” that kicked off in March in San Diego, CA.
“There’s something so powerful in having a moving experience that is actually always on the road. We see content all the time from people who have spotted it and are posting about it,” Schafer says. “Outside of maybe some maintenance here and there, we try to keep it on the road all the time so we can get to every corner and heartland in the U.S. where there are Crown fans and consumers.”
The Crown Royal Rig is now a centerpiece of Crown Royal’s experiential strategy, to which the brand has been working to add some consistency as it grows its partnership with the NFL and tentpole events, like the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
“I think at the heart of our strategy is how do we really ingrain Crown in the cultural spaces where we want to be,” Schafer says, “and then, really importantly, how do we reach and engage consumers in a way that we hadn’t been in the past? How do we constantly think creatively and evolve our experiences to bring in new people and then spark generosity among consumers to align with our brand mission?”
Looking at Crown Royal’s recent activations in New Orleans and Houston, Schafer took us deeper inside the brand’s approach to experiential marketing, along with insights shared by Kellie Pean, co-founder of Brand New: A Collective, the integrated marketing agency Crown Royal has worked with for the past seven years to bring its experiences to life.
Standing out in NOLA
For Super Bowl LIX, the official whisky sponsor of the NFL popped up its Crown Royal Station tailgate event in a New Orleans parking lot. The Crown Royal Rig served as the backdrop for the main stage’s performances, but the space also included several purple-washed touchpoints, including the Deluxe Dive bar, a hat customization station, general store booths for Crown Royal swag, the Royal Street Dining area and a Purple Bag Project packing station.
“We’ve previously treated Super Bowl as a bit of a one-off moment, and this was the first year where we crafted our NFL strategy to hit a handful of markets with the rig,” Schafer says. “Our goal was to culminate it at the Super Bowl, and we wanted it to feel connected to the rest of the season. Super Bowl is an incredibly loud, noisy and crowded time. What can we do in that space that’s going to be different from what we do throughout the year to really make an impact and bring people into our footprint?”
Like most of the brand activations around the Big Easy, Crown Royal Station took inspiration from the city’s local culture and heritage with nods to its cuisine, flavors, music and sounds. “It was really thinking about what makes New Orleans very unique, and how the subcultures in New Orleans come together to create their own style,” Pean says.
The Purple Bag Project Packing Station was a popular experience that drew a long line of attendees looking to give back, but it was also one of the few Super Bowl activations in New Orleans that had a charitable component. Every bag packed at the Crown Royal Station triggered a $1 donation (up to $50,000) for the Foundation for Louisiana. A ticker on the Crown Royal Station sign tracked the packing station’s progress.
“The military has always been a really critical community of ours. I think a year ago, we reached a million bags; we’re now over a million, and by 2030, we’re trying to reach 2 million bags,” Schafer says. “We have quite a few different variants, flavors, colors and identities, so one thing we worked hard on recently is anchoring back to our key brand assets and not losing sight of those. Purple is a color that’s very much tied to royalty, tied to our brand name, and is one that we own and want to continue to own through and through.”
“Outside of maybe some maintenance here and there, we try to keep [the Crown Royal Rig] on the road all the time so we can get to every corner and heartland in the U.S. where there are Crown fans and consumers.”
–Hadley Schafer, VP of Crown Royal, Diageo
Rallying a Texan Audience
The community ties extend to other Crown Royal activations, like at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, a monthlong, family-friendly celebration of agriculture, education, entertainment and Western heritage that takes place annually in March. A 10-year sponsor, Crown Royal always activates for the Houston Rodeo’s first two weekends, which include Black Heritage Day and Go Tejano Day. Schafer describes these weekends as crucial for reaching consumers. This year, Crown Royal signed on as a title sponsor and presented Armed Forces Appreciation Day.
“Texas is our No. 1 market, so it is really near and dear to us, and every time we show up there, we want to do so in a way that’s special and tied deeply into the community in Houston,” Schafer says. “It’s very competitive; there are tons and tons of brands. We looked at making this feel a bit fresher and new to drive more relevance with a broader base of consumers, including the younger consumer.”
Thus, the Crown Royal Saloon and Showroom was born—built on the Western style trend that has made a comeback in the last few years, thanks to the “Yellowstone” franchise and Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” album (and now newly launched tour). But generosity was also central to the experience.
“Last year, our focus was really on cowboy hats and local artisans from Texas, and this year, it evolved to focus more on acts of service,” Pean says. “Everyone who came in to pack our purple bags was rewarded with Crown Royal Bucks, which allowed them to go into our showroom and pick out a variety of custom Western merch that was really cool and co-branded with Crown Royal: bolo ties, belt buckles, hats and tees. It was a space where people could come in and celebrate their own individual expression as it relates to the rodeo.”
Live music performances and local djs got attendees up and line dancing, as they sipped on Crown Royal cocktails. Over six days, the footprint welcomed about 10,000 people, which, Pean says, exceeded last year’s attendance numbers, and participants packed almost 5,000 purple bags.
Forging Connections with Local Influencers and Customers
Incorporating influencers into events has been an important part of Crown Royal’s engagement strategy. Schafer says the brand looks for creators who are organic fans and share values with the brand, as well as those who “have really authentic ties to the spaces in which we’re showing up.” Crown Royal hosted influencers as part of a media trip and series of events throughout the Houston Rodeo weekends, and it has established relationships with rodeo riders, with whom they worked to drive traffic to the showroom activation.
For a second year, Crown Royal partnered with Houston rapper Bun B for the rodeo, this time bringing in Purple Brand, a Houston apparel brand, to drop the exclusive Crown Royal x Purple Brand Rodeo Capsule Collection. Inspired by Bun B’s style and rodeo fashion, the streetwear collection includes a co-branded graphic t-shirt, poncho and varsity jacket, and the rapper wore Crown Royal-branded items on stage during his headlining performance at the Houston Rodeo. Net proceeds from the collection will be donated to Soldiers’ Angels’ L.A. Wildfire Relief Fund, supporting fire relief efforts for veterans in the L.A. area.
Next, Crown Royal has been considering ways to reach fans and consumers where they are, bringing its rig and charitable initiatives to new, untapped cities. One tactic it’s exploring is partnering with customer stores to host pop-ups.
“As we think about getting the rig to more places, we’re not just showing up at these big marquee moments. Certainly, we want to be at our major tentpoles, but, truly, we want to get to some of the widespread towns and corners of the U.S.” Schafer says. “We found that a lot of big customers love having the rig in their parking lot, and it’s getting the most of an asset like that and creating an experience beyond the big cultural moment itself. We’ve learned a lot from partnering with some of these customers and accounts to bring consumers into their stores. We’ve gotten an incredibly positive response.”
Photo credit: BFA Images for Crown Royal
