2018 Brand Experience & Activation

THE SOCIAL BEER

TitleTHE SOCIAL BEER
BrandSPENDRUPS BRYGGERI AB
Product/ServiceNORRLANDS GULD
Category B01. Use of Ambient Media: Small Scale
Entrant ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production ÅKESTAM HOLST Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production 2 GO! FIGHT! FANTASTIC! Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production 3 BKRY Stockholm, SWEDEN
Additional Company BSMART CREATIVE PARTNER Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Magnus Jakobsson Åkestam Holst NoA Executive Creative Director
Martin Noreby Åkestam Holst NoA Art Director
Simon Lublin Åkestam Holst NoA Copywriter
Joakim Khoury Åkestam Holst NoA Art Director
Daniel Vaccino Åkestam Holst NoA Copywriter
Bella Lagerquist Åkestam Holst NoA Account Manager
Kenna Magnusson Åkestam Holst NoA Motion Designer
Ida Persson Åkestam Holst NoA PR Strategist
Eskil Lundberg BKRY Motion Designer
Johan Albrektsson Go! Fight! Fantastic! Technical Director
Nisse Axman BKRY Motion Designer
Henrik Adenskog BKRY Film producer

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

By updating our beer with live tweets from the World Cup, we created an activation in sports bars all over Sweden and offered up an experience that let fans enjoy the games together: phone free. The beer itself was the media, ready to drink and ready to share.

Background

Norrlands Guld is one of Sweden’s leading beers. The brand is built and brewed on a promise of togetherness, and these days, being together equals putting down your phone for a while. For the upcoming summer of FIFA World Cup 2018 we had a specific challenge on our hands, since Norrlands Guld had lost their official sponsorship of The Swedish National Team to a competing beer brand. This changed the circumstances and blocked us from traditional sponsor-channels. We needed an alternative solution in order to reach fans and become part of the buzz. With a technology designed specifically for the World Cup 2018, the campaign was implemented at sports bars around Sweden: the center of the action and given go-to-place for our selected audience: people who love football. And beer.

Describe the creative idea

According to a recent Swedish study 70 % feel that their phones just get in the way, when they get together. So for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, we brewed up a solution. Introducing the Social Beer – an updated Norrlands Guld that doubled as drinkable social media. A tailored algorithm collected the latest and biggest World Cup related tweets, and printed them onto the beers foam using a malt-based ink. Tweets were served within seconds from first appearing on the Twitter platform. Ready to drink, ready to share, and allowing fans to put down their phones without missing out on the action. With the simple idea of Twitter on tap we turned social media into something social again, while emphasizing the brands longtime promise of togetherness.

Describe the strategy

The World Cup brings people from all around the world together. But it’s also the single most tweeted event in the world, meaning people tend to spend a lot of time checking social media while watching. Since Norrlands Guld is all about togetherness, we wanted to create an idea that helped people stay off their phones without missing out on the action. During the World Cup millions of Swedes get together at restaurants and spors bars, so it was crucial business-wise to offer up something extra, and extra relevant, to grab fans attention. Given the fact that Norrlands Guld had recently lost their sponsorship of the Swedish National Team, we could not rely on posters, coasters or two-for-1-game-night-deals. We needed to invent something different, something that in itself could make our beer a trending topic, and that underlined Norrlands Gulds mission to let people spend quality time together.

Describe the execution

We built a machine that scanned Twitter for the most relevant World Cup tweets, and then printed them onto beer-foam, using a custom made malt-based ink. Thanks to a tailored algorithm beers were served within seconds, after first being posted on the Twitter platform. The technology was developed specifically for the World Cup in order to let fans enjoy the fun phone-free, and was implemented at large sports bars around Sweden during the summer. Events were documented and turned into sharable film content, which was spread mostly organically and – perhaps a bit ironically - thanks to a massive positive response on social media. The campaign was supported by in-store-materials, banners, prints that invited people to enjoy a Social Beer, and a nation-wide study of Sweden´s thoughts on smart-phone-habits: which was used as a backdrop for launching The Social Beer.

List the results

The Social Beer became the summer’s trending beer topic with record-braking numbers in sales, likes and media-mentions. It underlined the brands promise of togetherness and gave Norrlands Guld a real-time-reason-to-speak during the commercially crowded world cup. Sales increased 31 % in the crucially important Bar- and restaurants-channels, beating all expectations and making Norrlands Guld the best-selling beer in Sweden, by far. Brand-mentions in social media increased 400 % during the campaign. With cold beer as our main channel achieved a reach of 375 million impressions thanks to posts and news-pieces in Vice, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, CBS News, In The Know, Ruptly, International Business Times, Food & Wine and many others. Sweden got knocked out in the quarterfinals, but for Norrlands Guld the World Cup resulted in gold.