TAG | black lager
This beer’s slightly scary label was created by a Scottish art student, Heather Brennan, who was at the launch of the dark lager tonight looking slightly awestruck – meeting with beer writers and bloggers (even Roger Protz was in the house, scribbling notes) – despite the fact that this was her first real day in London: she’d spent much of the day going to see the sights and photographing them. This was the first time she’d actually seen the beer bottles with her design on them; and the first time she’d tasted the beer, too. She won a competition organised by the brewery.
Heather was dressed in purple, echoing the bottle’s colour: but it seems even this has a story – the original plan was for the label to be in green, not dark purple, but the printer had run out of the right colour ink.
There’s a story everywhere. James Watt (no, not the radio presenter from Stray FM, but the managing director of the brewery) was especially impressed at the new, soon-to-be-launched website for the beer. Apparently, if you buy a case for delivery on the website, you get a code to be able to post a blog entry on the website. This is a clever wheeze – the website encouraging a community feel from Zeitgeist beer drinkers. It’s like social media, but around a new beer.
Brewdog understand the web completely. The beer’s even on Twitter; and the only reason I was there is because of a blog posting I made recently about the brewery which was noticed by their PR man.
And, naturally, it’s backed-up with a solid beer. Zeitgeist is a black lager (it’s how lager used to be), with a nice light chocolatey/coffee taste. At 4.9% it’s not too scary, being the same kind of strength as a standard lager. Not just does it taste better than a Kronenburg, it’s less fizzy too. And while the MD of the company was slightly uncomfortable with the temperature of the beer (he cradled his bottle in his hands, attempting to warm it up, while telling us good things about the flavour), he was very pleased once he saw the beer beginning to go down well. It’s the first black lager to be produced in the UK; and pinches its successful formula from Germany, where schwartz-beers are a favourite taste for many.
This type of marketing is perfect for the launch of any brand; and perfect for any radio station to learn from. Local interest from a competition; stories all over the place to ensure a good, long-lasting story; proper, sensible use of tools like Twitter and blogs to monitor what people are saying and reach out to their audience; and backed up with a solid product that doesn’t look as if it’s been market-researched into bland oblivion.
A triumph for Brewdog; but something to learn for any marketer, too.
