UK brewers to harness social media to target people ‘who are not habitual beer drinkers’
Britain’s biggest brewers are channelling their marketing alliance around social media that will see them use the discipline to target mass market consumers who are not habitual beer drinkers.
Britain’s Beer Alliance, which includes the nation’s biggest brewers AB InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg, SABMiller and Molson Coors, have appointed Telegraph Hill to steer its first major push into social media. While the initiative has used the medium before - most notably to allow fans to request beer suggestions for food on Twitter - it wants social networks to play a more intrinsic part of how it shifts the nation’s perceptions of beer using the strapline 'There’s a Beer for That'.
To do this, future social media activations will focus on building a community of newly converted beer lovers that is underpinned by four pillars; education, experimentation, engagement and evangelising.
Louise Doherty, digital audience lead at Britain’s Beer Alliance, has long-talked up the importance of social media to the initiative’s long-term goals and said Telegraph would help unite its social strategy, content management and social media spend.
“[Teleraph Hill’s] marrying of insights, strategy and creative impressed us in the pitch and will help portray the diversity, versatility and quality of our nation's beers. This will further boost the renaissance that we’re already seeing for beer in Britain,” she added.
The move is funded by the campaign’s £10m outlay, which introduced its debut TV ad last year. Due to that ad’s popularity, Britain’s Beer Alliance have opted to bring it back this summer and as a result has had more money this year to push the campaign into new channels, of which social is one.
David Cunningham, programme director of the There’s A Beer For That” campaign recently told The Drum: “We still have that money but we’ve been able to use that money to invest in new media channels and new programmes such as in the on-trade and off-trade and digital as well as our social programme to drive more awareness and reach.”
The move is part of the industry’s second collective reboot of their attempts to promote beer to a wider audience. The first attempt was not welcomed by all consumers and its TV ad was censured by the Advertising Standards Authority.
Cunningham credited the campaign for the positive impact it has had on UK beer sales. Beer sales rose 1.5 per cent year-on-year in the latest quarter, according to the British Beer & Pub Assocaiton (BBPA).
Beer sales are continuing to grow year-on-year, with sales at the end of quarter one rising 1.5 per cent over the past 12 months, it has been announced today. The figures are reported in the latest ‘Beer Barometer’ from the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA).