When Canadians started rushing to get their hands on a discontinued Molson Canadian jersey after Drake was spotted wearing one, the beer brand seized the moment with a stunt designed to get fans in store.

Called the “Jersey Drop,” the social stunt was sparked by a sudden rush of demand for the vintage apparel after the hip-hop artist shared photos of himself wearing it on social media. With the jersey “popping up all over social feeds,” says Sophia Lal, senior brand manager for Molson and Miller trademarks, “it felt like the right time to bring one of our OG styles back.”

“This vintage find is giving people nostalgia for beer-branded merch from our cases back in the day,” she adds. The jersey had initially been distributed as one of several hockey, baseball and cycling shirts of various styles in the late ’90s and early 2000s. “Giving the next generation of Molson fans the opportunity to track down these jerseys just felt like a natural next step.”

With demand for the jerseys high on social, Molson enlisted its AOR, Rethink, to help bring the stunt together by hunting down the jerseys online. Those jerseys were bought and three of them were released in specially-marked packages across the Greater Toronto Area from August 10 to 12. The brand used its own Instagram page, as well as influencer support from Citizen Relations, to lend hints to hunters who wanted to get their hands on them.

“The speed that this stunt came together sets a new precedent,” says Caroline Friesen, partner and creative director at Rethink. “From tracking down the jerseys right as demand for them started heating up, to cutting the video in record time, to getting the jerseys out the door, and enlisting brand ambassadors to help tell the story – this was a rapid, all-hands-on-deck project where trust and collaboration are required to pull it off properly.”