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History
In 2019, Miller Lite decided to enter the gaming world. This was first established on May 15, 2019 when Miller Lite announced that they had signed a deal with the esports organization Complexity Gaming. The deal included care packaged for players, sponsorship for different party lounges in eSports tournament and Miller and a new video series where Complexity’s players and influencers recount their best esports stories. But way before this deal was reached, Miller Lite was working on yet another way to associate is named with the gaming industries. Everything started a few months before when Miller Lite started working on a new publicity stunt to boast their presence with gamers. To ensure success, Miller hired DDB Chicago, a full-service advertising and marketing agency headquartered in Chicago and UNIT9, a global innovation and creative production studio which specialize in blending technology, art, and experiential marketing. Yifei Chai, Creative Director at UNIT9 took the lead as Creative Director for the CANtroller.
The idea was simple, can we turn a can of beer into a controller. The answer was a bit more complex. The CANtroller took about three months to develop. No one had ever done anything like this before, so without any model to follow, the whole approach was crafted from the ground up. The team tested dozens of conductive materials, laminating approaches, and wrapping materials to find the winning combination that would integrate the necessary tech while maintaining the appearance of the original can design. The can is wrapped with a super thin, flexible printed circuit board around the can and stuck metal dome switches on top with adhesive. The final product is a wireless, rechargeable 10-button controller with integrated Bluetooth technology that allows you to connect it to any computer. Its lithium-ion battery allows for three hours of gameplay and its micro USB port recharges it in a flash. Best of all, the CANtroller still works after you pop the tab and drink the beer inside, so you can keep playing long after you enjoy your refreshing reward … and it is fridge safe.
Release
Miller knew they had something crazy, and since it was never designing to be mass-produced, they had one shot at making this stunt as big as possible. The upcoming E3 in Los Angeles was the perfect venue to showcase their CANtroller. Sadly, Miller didn’t have an E3 Sponsorship so they couldn’t rent a space inside. Instead, they set up across the street from E3 and hired famous actor Eric André to host a Street Fighter tournament. The rules were simple: if you could beat Eric André at Street Fighter, you got a free CANtroller. The tournament was streamed live on Twitch and broke the record for a branded stream.
Demise
From the start the CANtroller was designed as a publicity stunt. The controller was functioning but was fairly limited. It only had 4 buttons and a 4-way DPad which seriously limited the games you could use it with. The controls themselves were flimsy. But the buzz created around the CANtroller was an epic success. The purchase intent amongst gamers was up 728%, the stunt had more than a billion impressions, and the CANtroller won several prizes including a Silver and Bronze medal at the One Show and a Bronze Clios award. Following this huge success, Eric André even became the spokesperson for Twitch.
But as all good things must come to an end, the CANtroller slowly faded away. Milled hinted that several hundred more could be on their way but, to our knowledge, these additional controllers never saw the light of day. As the months passed by, new more outrageous publicity stunts happen. The KFConsole took the game to a whole new level, followed by the BL6, a fully functional console made by Bud Lite (which technically could work with the CANtroller) . Nowadays, the CANtroller is mostly forgotten, but it did show the world that it paid out to be bold and innovative.