Modelo’s TV ad spend lends new meaning to the term ‘beer money’

It takes a big budget to be the most popular beer brand in the country.

Modelo Especial, the No. 1 beer brand in America, is also the category’s biggest TV advertiser, according to ad spend data from measurement firm iSpot provided to Marketing Brew.

The imported Mexican beer, which dethroned Bud Light last year in the midst of right-wing backlash to Bud Light’s work with a trans influencer, is the largest buyer of TV ads so far this year, spending an estimated $65 million as of July, per iSpot.

Much of that spend has been directed toward the Constellations Brands-owned beer’s “The Mark of a Fighter” ad campaign and on ads supporting its light beer, Modelo Oro.

Modelo has held the title as the category’s biggest spender since roughly the second quarter of 2020. Last year, Modelo spent $155 million on traditional TV ads, according to iSpot data, and the brand is planning to spend even more in 2024, Constellation Brands CEO Bill Newlands recently told investors.

“Despite Modelo being No. 1, there’s still a lot of awareness opportunity, and we’re planning to go get it,” Newlands said.

It’s a relatively recent rise to the top for the brand. Modelo aired its first national English-language ad in 2015, according to Ad Age, and just a decade ago, it wasn’t even a top 10 beer.

As Modelo’s TV marketing spend grows, the beer category as a whole has lost some ad-spending steam: Total linear national TV ad spending declined from $917 million in 2019 to $734 million in 2023, a drop of about 20%, according to iSpot. That’s likely due to pullbacks from heavy-hitters Budweiser and Bud Light, which have reduced TV ad spend by 77% and 38%, respectively, between 2018 and 2023, iSpot found.

Let the tap flow

Modelo didn’t necessarily buy its way into America’s hearts and refrigerators alone, and consumer consumption habits and changing demographics have helped power Modelo’s rapid growth.

While overall beer sales were up 1% in 2024 compared to 2023, sales of imported beer like Modelo were up 9.3% in the same timeframe, according to the retail data company Circana (formerly IRI). Non-alcoholic beer sales, meanwhile, were up 29%.

Bud Light remains the biggest beer by volume, in part because of its sales to restaurants and bars, but Modelo is on pace to surpass this as well, Jim Watson, a senior beverage analyst at Rabobank, told Marketing Brew.

“Bud Light certainly has had a very tough last year, but that’s coming off of roughly two decades of slow decline,” Watson said. “We’ve had the same top four beers in the US—Bud Light, Budweiser, Coors Light, and Miller Lite—for many generations of beer drinkers. We’re seeing a changing of the guard.”

Amid the fallout stemming from Bud Light’s work with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the beer brand said it would triple its US advertising last summer, the Wall Street Journal reported, but Modelo still outpaced the company’s spending in 2023, according to iSpot.

Just last week, Bud Light, which iSpot estimates has spent $37 million this year on TV ads, fell to third place in sales according to NielsenIQ, trailing behind Michelob Ultra, which has spent $48.3 million so far this year.

Crack open a cold one

While beer is, well, beer, the biggest brands in the category have vastly different branding and advertising, Watson said. Bud Light tends to present itself in ads as sophomoric, funny, and fratty, he said, while Modelo leans heavily on aspirational storytelling. Just juxtapose the goofiness of a Bud Light Genie to a grandmother flipping tortillas with her fingertips.

“They’ve done a really good job of presenting Modelo as this beer that is for everyone,” Bryan Roth, a market analyst at Feel Goods Company and editor of Sightlines, a newsletter about the alcohol industry, said. “They really do lead on these stories of everyday successes.”

Even Michelob Ultra, he added, pitches itself as a lifestyle brand instead of a more generic light beer.

In recent years, Modelo has invested in sports marketing, advertising during NFL and NBA broadcasts and striking a deal with NBA All-Star guard Damian Lillard, who has appeared in its ads.

It’s a competitive space: Modelo which sponsored UFC in the US beginning in 2018, last year lost that sponsorship to Bud Light, and AB InBev-owned Michelob Ultra is the exclusive beer sponsor of Team USA through 2028.

Beyond its marketing push, Modelo has benefited from a considerable demographic shift in US: the Hispanic population in the country, which has made up a considerable portion of the brand’s consumer set and is featured heavily in its advertising, grew 23% from 2010 to 2022, representing 19% of the overall US population, according to a Pew Research analysis. Constellation executives have credited Hispanic audiences and their loyalty to the portfolio, which includes Corona and Pacifico, as a tailwind for the company.

But the company’s audience, too, is diversifying. In 2019 Constellation said 70% of Modelo’s customers were Hispanic; last year, Constellation said non-Hispanic customers made up around 45% of Modelo’s customer base.