HOW BEER BRANDS CAN MAKE AN IMPACT IN A DECLINING MARKET.

IT’S NOT GOOD NEWS…

PREMIUMISATION

TREND

HEALTH &

WELLNESS

TREND

EMERGING

FEMALE MARKET DECLINE OF

THE PUB

DESIRE FOR

AUTHENTIC,

CRAFTED

PRODUCTS

HAVING AN IMPACT HAS NEVER BEEN AS HARD AS TODAY IN YOUR CATEGORY.

THE MARKET HAS CHANGED, LEAVING SALES IN DECLINE.

WE UNDERTOOK IN-DEPTH RESEARCH INTO CONSUMER ATTITUDES TOWARDS BEER BRANDS IN THE UK*.

WE WANTED TO FIND OUT MORE.

*Brand Desire 2013 – a study of 20,000+ consumers, 678 brands, across 3 countries, to find out not only how desirable brands currently are, but what they need to do to increase their desire and commercial impact. www.brand-desire.com

THE RESULTS WERE REVEALING.

POOR DESIRE

CATEGORY DESIRE RANKINGS ACROSS BRAND DESIRE 2013

The desire for beer brands is incredibly low, barely overtaking financial services, and below telecoms brands!

POOR DESIRE

0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0 160.0

Tobacco

Energy

Financial Services

Beer

Telecomms

Restaurants

Pet Care

Sports Apparel

Travel & Leisure

Professional Services

Alcohol

OTC Healthcare

Home Care

Apparel

Food & Drink

Personal Care

Consumer Electronics

Snacking

Retail

Other

Media

Handheld Technology

Automotive

Beauty

Not for Profit

Luxury

Beer brands underperform in creating real connections with people.

112

90 85 84 83

79 77 77 75 75 75 74 74 70 66 66

60 57 56 53 45

41

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Guinness is the most desirable brand, some way ahead of the rest of the pack. It is also the ONLY beer brand to score higher than the average desirability score in the UK (100), showing the real lack of desirability beer has as a category - an incredible disconnect given it is a category associated with fun, social occasions.

Cross-category average

DESIRE RANKINGS WITHIN THE BEER CATEGORY

POOR DESIRE

POOR DIFFERENTIATION

Almost all brands fall into personality territories split by sub-category lines. Lagers, for example, are all seen as cool and sociable.

POOR DIFFERENTIATION

BEER BRANDS DON’T STAND OUT: IT’S ALL JUST LAGER OR ALE.

Cool

Status

Respect

Reassurance

Care

Sociability

Heineken

Budweiser

Carlsberg

Becks

Stella Artois

Amstel

Carling

Coors

Corona

Fosters

Kronenburg 1664

Peroni

Brand Personalities mapped for the Lager Category in the UK,

POOR CUT THROUGH

38% We asked what media touch points had influenced a respondent’s opinion of a beer brand. An average of 38% of people said their view was not influenced by ANY media.

POOR CUT THROUGH

3) POOR CUT THROUGH

Beer brands underperform in making people notice what they say and do

Not influenced byany media type

Influenced by oneor more mediatouchpoints

38%

BEER BRANDS UNDERPERFORM IN MAKING PEOPLE NOTICE WHAT THEY SAY AND DO.

A CATEGORY WITH A LACK OF DESIRE, DIFFERENTIATION AND CUT THROUGH.

IN SUMMARY

CREATING MORE DESIRE AND COMMERCIAL IMPACT FOR YOUR BRAND.

THAT’S FIGHTING TALK..

WE CAN REVIVE THE UK’S DESIRE FOR BEER.

WE BELIEVE

BY LOOKING AT THE PRINCIPLES OF HOW BRANDS CREATE IMPACT THROUGH DESIRE, WE CAN SEE HOW A REAL DIFFERENCE WILL BE MADE

IMPACT = ENERGY + SUBSTANCE + CONNECTION

ENERGY

Have an ambition that energises your world. A brand has greater impact on business performance if it has a tangible purpose with the power to inspire and drive the business forward, and the authenticity to deliver against it.

Brand Energy describes the right fit between

an ambition to do good and

actually making good product

Energy is all about your purpose and reason for being. To be successful in this area, brands need to have an ambition that inspires their internal audience, customer and wider society. This ambition also needs to be genuine - a vision that is rooted in the realities of the business. Innocent is a brand with great energy. Their raison d’etre is to help people ‘live well and die old’. Innocent is the most desirable food and drinks brand in the study and has seen sales rocketing by 35% in 2012.

ENERGY ACROSS CATEGORIES

Live well and die old +35% sales Look, feel and do

good +3.8% turnover

Unleash your inner athlete +7% vol. sales

Brand Energy describes the right fit between an ambition to do good and actually making good product

Does the beer category have energy?

When it comes to energy, beer brands have a real lack of fizz. Aside from a slightly better performance from Guinness, few beer brands score well on this measure.

ENERGY

Brand Energy describes the right fit between an ambition to do good and actually making good product

This

bra

nd

mak

es g

reat

pro

du

cts

This brand is on a mission to improve society

Guinness

Heineken

Budweiser

Carlsberg

Becks

Stella Artois

Amstel

Boddingtons

Brew Dog

Carling

Coors

Corona

Fosters

Greene King IPA

Grolsch

Hoegaarden

John Smiths

Kronenburg 1664

Old Speckled Hen

Peroni

San Miguel

Tetley Smooth

OLD TIMER GUINNESS STILL HAS MORE ENERGY THAN ITS RIVALS.

Heritage & legacy still helping support it’s higher purpose.

Association with Irish-ness and special occasions.

Huge, iconic advertising standing for more than just beer.

Guinness shows that brands can have real longevity and energy in old age. People continue to hugely respect – and desire – the Guinness brand, and it is seen as being on a mission to improve society; this being driven by its current and past associations with things bigger than just beer!

SURELY THERE IS A SPACE FOR A BEER BRAND WHICH HAS A HIGHER AMBITION BEYOND GETTING

PEOPLE TO RELAX OR HAVE A GOOD TIME?

HOW TO WIN IN BEER

Bonus Tip!

Direct your energy so you make, not just take volume. In a shrinking category, the only way up is to grow the category. Peroni and BrewDog have high desirability scores and are starting to do just that– Peroni appealing to women, BrewDog to younger, more affluent males, who enjoy the craft beer experience. Their aspirational and differentiated purposes put them in a great position to excel on this measure and fuel their growth in the future.

Stand for something bigger. Get consumers to buy into your ‘reason why’ instead of making purchase decisions on slight variances in product and communications.

SUBSTANCE Keep reinventing your offer in a meaningful way. A brand has greater impact on business performance if it continues to evolve the substance it offers in people’s lives.

Substance is the tangible proof of energy. It isn’t solely about producing a great product or service, but continuously re-evaluating and innovating to ensure the brand has a real role in people’s lives. Dyson came out as one of the highest performing brands in this area - known for its game-changing innovations, products like Airblade and ball vacuum cleaners. Dyson was the 10th most desirable UK brand in our study.

SUBSTANCE ACROSS CATEGORIES

184

Amazon

#7 brand +27% sales

#10 brand +25% sales

#1 B&M retailer +6% sales

SUBSTANCE

Beer brands are seen as woefully un-innovative in consumers minds, and not making any differences to people’s lives with their products

The only beacon of light in terms of innovation is BrewDog, and to a lesser extent Stella Artois.

Consumers are clearly registering that BrewDog is breaking the mould with it’s outrageous and extensive product range, whilst Stella Artois’ early stretch into Cider has clearly been noticed too.

Guinness Heineken

Budweiser

Carlsberg

Becks

Stella Artois

Amstel

Boddingtons

BrewDog

Carling Coors

Corona

Fosters Greene King IPA

Grolsch

Hoegaarden John Smiths

Kronenburg 1664

Old Speckled Hen Peroni

San Miguel

Tetley Smooth

Beer brands fail to make a meaningful difference.

Brand Substance describes the right fit between constantly innovating and

making a difference to people’s lives; examples UK

NEXT LEVEL INNOVATION…

BREWDOG – INNOVATIVE IN EVERY WAY TO GIVE BEER A FIRM SHAKE BY THE NECK

BrewDog take innovation to the next level, in their marketing, but even more so with their products…with a vast, constant stream of truly innovative/outrageous, high quality products Their innovation exudes fun and passion – like a bunch of mad professors let loose in a brewery. And consumers love them– because they love what BrewDog’s brand is about, and therefore know what to expect from their products – a wild, unpredictable ride.

Vast core range, with constant rolling innovation, with strong consistent

branding

Stretching ABV to the max (32%)

Creating beer as Art with their premium ‘Abstrakt’ range (selling for £80 on ebay)

Using outrageous ingredients

However, whilst BrewDog has pulled away on being seen as innovative, no beer brands are being seen to create products that make a real difference to people’s lives.

How can we create a deeper role and meaning to innovations in this category?

HOW TO WIN IN BEER

Bonus Tip!

If your product innovation drives forward your brand purpose, you have a potent cocktail to give your brand more desirability. BrewDog’s outrageous innovations add huge substance to its similarly outrageous purpose. Stella’s ‘Cidre’ and Stella ‘4’ innovations add real substance to it’s move to a more sophisticated, feminine positioning. However, to add more substance, all beer brands can do much better to add a deeper meaning to what their products are about and what they are offering to consumers lives.

When creating innovation, ensure it is clearly meeting a deeper need. Always ask yourself ‘why will this product make a difference?’

CONNECTION Develop a personality that humanises connections A brand has greater impact on business performance if it has a clear personality to connect with that reflects the relationship consumers want to have with it.

People build relationships with brands in the same way they do with real people. Some want friends that reflect who they are, whilst others feel drawn to those who they’d like to be. Either way, the clearer you are about who you are and the more coherent you are across touchpoints, the more

memorable and desirable your brand will be.

…As long as it’s a personality your audience wants to connect with.

YET ONCE YOU GET PAST THE CATEGORY DECISION IN BEER (LAGER OR ALE?),

THERE’S OFTEN NOT MUCH REAL CHOICE TO BE HAD.

Cool

Status

Respect

Reassurance

Care

Sociability Heineken

Budweiser

Carlsberg

Becks

Stella Artois

Amstel

Carling

Coors

Corona

Fosters

Kronenburg 1664

Peroni

All lager brands follow the same shape – all playing the ‘sociability’ game.

LAGER BRAND PERSONALITIES

Cool

Status

Respect

Reassurance

Care

Sociability

2013 - UK - Stella Artois

2013 - UK - Guinness

2013 - UK - Brew Dog

2013 - UK - Old Speckled Hen

2013 - UK - Peroni

PERSONALITIES OF THE TOP 5 DESIRABLE BEER BRANDS

THE MOST DESIRED BRANDS HAVE A STRONG, WELL DEFINED PERSONALITY

BrewDog is seen as much cooler than other beer brands – and unashamedly not ‘caring. It has created this differentiation by creating a brand with a ground breaking ‘punk’ ethos that runs through everything it does. Standing out has helped drive it up to the 5th highest beer desire score and the highest score of any beer for both ‘a brand I want to know more about’ and ‘a brand I like to talk about’. This proves that people can get excited about beer again – we just need to give them something different to get excited about!

BREWDOG – A BRAND NOT AFRAID TO STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD

Celebration of beer Call to action & welcoming to their

club

Creating buzz through break-through marketing & PR

WHAT PERSONALITY WILL HELP US STAND OUT IN A DECLINING CATEGORY?

Bonus Tip! Standing out in how you connect comes not just from your message but the medium too. Beer brands should look to connect with consumers beyond the conventional mainstream media… beers have been plying their message here for far too long, converging in their medium as well as their message! If we want to bring in new types of consumer, we must adopt new ways to find them!

Now is not the time for blending into the crowd.

Be bold in selecting the 2-3 personality attributes you want to stand for and do it in a truly differentiating way.

HOW TO WIN IN BEER

HOW TO WIN IN BEER…KEY TAKE OUTS

Differentiate on personality to stand out in a sea of sameness.

Stand for something bigger than ‘having a good time’.

Create desirable innovations that support your purpose and add value to your customer’s lives.

SO HOW CAN WE HELP YOU DRIVE IMPACT THROUGH DESIRE?

THE BIG IDEA

• Finding your brand purpose

• Brand engagement

• Brand experience design

PRODUCT EVOLUTION

• Innovating to support the

purpose

• Portfolio strategy

• Brand architecture innovation

strategy (business model,

service, product, offer)

UNDERSTANDING AND CONNECTING WITH CONSUMERS

• Creating a bigger

experience that transcends

the category

• Insight & market analysis

• Consumer segmentation &

growth mapping

• Brand positioning &

personality

• Activation strategy

ENERGY

SUBSTANCE CONNECTION

IMPACT

THANK YOU!

WWW.BRAND-DESIRE.COM