• by Danielle Oster , April 8, 2024

A number of CPG brands decided to place themselves in the path of totality in the run-up to the eclipse.

Blue Moon’s “Eclipse Sips” featuring “Moon Dust”

When your brand name itself includes the word “moon,” and refers to a rare celestial event, it would be a pretty glaring omission to ignore the eclipse. MolsonCoors’ Blue Moon wasn’t going to miss the moment, which also happens to coincide with its new “Made Brighter” campaign for the Belgian White Belgian-Style Wheat Ale promoting a major rebranding effort for the brand which includes a logo and packaging redesign.

For the eclipse, Blue Moon created an “Eclipse Sips” set for sale on its merch store, which it made available beginning April 3. (It has since sold out.) The kit included four glow-in-the-dark Blue Moon pint glasses, blacklight coasters and flashlight, and “Moon Dust,” which the brand claims makes Blue Moon “shimmer and glow” when added to the beer, all housed within a glow-in-the-dark commemorative box.

Blue Moon also poured a specialty version of Eclipse Sips brewed with Eclipse hops the brands says impart “hints of zesty citrus peel,” and incorporating Moon Dust at its Denver brewery.

“Moon is in our name. We had to celebrate the occasion!” said Courtney Benedict, vice president of marketing, Above Premium Beer at Molson Coors.

Perfect Bar goes dark

Among the brands using the occasion to promote new releases is Mondelez protein bar brand Perfect Bar, which is promoting the release of its new Chocolate Brownie Perfect Bar. The new flavor features “freshly ground peanut butter, cashew butter, and cocoa, topped with dark chocolate chips,” with the brand drawing connections between “going dark” and the latter ingredient (some brands have to stretch a bit further without celestial brand name elements).

To promote the release, the brand included eclipse glasses with Chocolate Brownie orders online at no additional cost, while available. It also offered discounts on its website: 20% off Chocolate Brownie Perfect Bar from March 25 -- April 12, to signify that it will be 20 years until the next total solar eclipse in the U.S., and 50% off on April 8 to customers in the path of totality.

Sierra Nevada goes cosmic

California brewing mainstay Sierra Nevada also used the eclipse to introduce a new item. In this case, though, it’s a themed limited release coinciding with the event: Cosmic Little Thing, a beer, and name, riffing on the company’s Hazy Little Thing IPA. Cosmic Little Thing is a “hazy double IPA” brewed using hops with celestial names -- Comet, Strata, and Helios -- which the brewer claims gives it “big notes of citrus, berries, and lychee.” Sierra Nevada released the beer as part of its limited edition hazy IPA series, making it available for delivery on its website, as well as in retail locations, through June.