White Claw: Claiming the UK hard-seltzer crown

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Helping White Claw claim the UK hard-seltzer crown

Helping White Claw claim the UK hard-seltzer crown

Challenge

The summer of 2021 saw a new category boom in the UK - Hard Seltzers. Having had monumental success in the US, White Claw was launching in the UK with the same aspiration. Only this time, it wasn’t just a product launch, but also a category launch with over 200 entrants to market to compete with.

Joined by a competitive market, hard seltzer’s aren’t a concept the Brits are familiar with. We needed to cut through and successfully launch White Claw in the UK with the objectives of building awareness and driving value share. Importantly, we needed to achieve this whilst balancing the unique look and feel of White Claw’s brand identity – a lifestyle brand aligned to culture, not just a typical alcoholic beverage.

What we did

As a refreshing low-calorie beverage, White Claw is the perfect drink to own the summer socials. Using segment insight to understand what our audiences return to socialising could look like post-pandemic, we knew parks would be a key entry point for the brand. We set out to own parks in key opinion-forming neighbourhoods in London and Manchester.

OOH was the perfect medium to lead this initiative, giving us status and scale. We could then use geo-located digital targeting to serve additional messages and funnel the public towards places where they could get a can in their hand to encourage trial, closing the loop on awareness and ‘can in hand’ trial.

This campaign used a range of OOH formats, from murals and wraparounds to station takeovers, to simple roadside 6 sheets, to create interconnected awareness, that made this campaign unmissable and highly successful.

Results

The campaign was a huge success to launch White Claw in the UK. The use of OOH helped make White Claw an iconic part of Summer 2021 in key neighbourhoods across London and Manchester. We drove 56% uplift in awareness in London as a result of our summer activity, making us the UK’s #1 hard seltzer brand with 41% value share. Most recently, we were won the Multi-channel Strategy award at The Drum OOH awards.