Corona turns ocean cleanup into a fishing tournament fishermen want to win

Corona's home turf came with a contradiction: the beer of beach days, while Mexican coastline waters took in an estimated 750 million plastic containers a year. Cleaning it was virtuous but unpaid work, and the fishing communities that lived off the same waters were losing income to pollution, overfishing and tourist litter. The brand had spent years on sustainability promises; the problem was that no one had made cleanup worth doing.

With New York agency We Believers, Corona stopped appealing and started competing. On 12 June 2021 in Mazatlán, more than 60 fishermen on 30 boats were invited to fish for plastic instead of fish: four hours, a weigh-in on the dock, and cash for the biggest catch — MX$15,000 for first place, MX$10,000 and MX$5,000 for the runners-up, plus medals and vouchers for tools made from recycled material. The first tournament hauled 2.9 tonnes from the channel between Isla de la Piedra and the Urías estuary.

The collected plastic went to México Recicla, a recycler in Ecatepec where about 60% of the workforce is women; the partnership had already recovered over 5 million kg of plastic since December 2020. In 2022, Corona scaled the mechanic globally, running tournaments in Mexico, Brazil, China, Israel, Colombia and South Africa that pulled 20+ tonnes of plastic from the ocean, earned 2 billion impressions with 90% positive sentiment, and took the Grand Clio in Experience & Activation at the 2023 Clio Awards.