Peroni leveraged its partnership with Ferrari’s Formula One team for a Twitch streaming campaign to promote its 0.0% alcoholic beer to gamers.
The Race To Zero, launched in September with creative agency No Problem and influencer agency NewGen, centred on a series of racing-inspired challenges within the video game F1 2025, featuring UK streamers including RiaBish, Kireth, and Stokes.
‘We wanted to help strengthen our connection within this space by turning it into something more ownable and distinctly 0.0%,’ said Rob Hobart, marketing director at Asahi.
Challenges deliberately focused on the 0.0% identity of the beer — one of the few non-alcoholic beers with no trace of alcohol. The streamers competed to have a lap time that includes 0.0 in it, complete error-free laps, and finish simultaneously with teammates within 0.0 seconds of each other.
Fans could watch the Twitch streams live and participate via QR codes, competing for prizes including trips to Monza and exclusive racing merchandise. Six live streams ran across September, culminating in a final showdown headlined by Behzinga and NYKChazza, who narrowly beat RiaBish and AlexGillon.
No Problem, founded in 2022 by former BBH staff, led the creative strategy. Tom Murphy, co-founder, explained: ‘We worked on a way to show up in this space in a way that feels authentic to Peroni without being irritating or disingenuous to gamers. And we got to this strategic idea around style and actually not playing to always win.
‘The idea was harnessed from the Peroni brand itself, the world of spezzatura [studied carelessness, or effortless grace]. But it also pushes against this slightly odd thing in the gaming world — the sweats, the grind, people just hammering away to win. And actually that’s not really very Peroni.’
Asahi, Peroni’s parent company, has set a target for alcohol-free products to make up 20% of its portfolio by 2030. The surge in popularity of 0% alcohol is being driven largely by millennials and Gen Z, who are conscious of the negative effects of regular alcohol consumption.
But standing out in this field isn’t an easy task for advertisers. Traditional alcohol marketing relies on glamour, sophistication, and sex appeal — but how do you communicate that for a product that is devoid of the substance that fuels those delusions?
Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0% has tested several strategies since launching in 2022, sponsoring Channel 4’s First Dates in 2023 for example. But it is the brand’s partnership with Ferrari’s F1 team that offers the clearest positioning. The collaboration leverages shared Italian heritage and the aspirational, glamorous world of F1, best demonstrated by this year’s advert featuring drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. Race To Zero built upon that foundation, drilling home the F1 connection while being more specific in its audience targeting.
‘Asking someone who’s 18 to 35 if they’re a gamer is like asking your mom if they’re a TV watcher,’ Adam Gong, fellow co-founder of No Problem, said. ‘Brands working with streamers isn’t a novel thing, but normally you get generic partnerships. We’re trying to give them something that is entertaining, something that has more value.’
He also noted the challenge of marketing in gaming: ‘People don’t identify as a TV watcher or a radio listener. But with gaming, you have to be a little more conscious. People are savvy about how brands operate in their space.’
The approach paid off. Streamer Alex Gillon called it ‘genuinely the most fun [sponsored campaign] I’ve ever done,’ and fans engaged with 207,000 VoD views, 1.8m impressions, 32,932 hours watched and 61,809 unique viewers. Gong highlighted streaming’s unique advantage: ‘People are tuned into an hour-long stream — that’s an hour with a brand that you just don’t get in normal ads. It’s dedicated attention.’
The success of Race To Zero shows the importance of finding relevant media spaces, ones that mesh well with the intended brand image, and then creating content that perfectly integrates into that eco-system. Underscoring that relevance, entertainment and authenticity matter more than alcohol content in winning over young consumers.
