KRONENBOURG 1664:

LONG-TERM MARKETING
SUPRÊME
2012 – A Challenger Brand in Challenging Times
In 2012 Kronenbourg 1664’s fortunes were not looking
good. Sadly, this wasn’t new. Since the heady pre-
recession heights of 2007 when the business was
selling 1.7m hectoliters of beer*, Kronenbourg had
been in chronic value and volume decline within an
industry that was selling less and less beer and where
competition was stiffening.

In the on-trade Kronenbourg had lost 26% of volumes*

in the last year and the more robust off-trade wasn’t
faring much better, with 14.5% in volume losses*.

With the burgeoning craft lager and world lager

segments opening up, and 80 new lagers available in
2011 alone*, Kronenbourg was increasingly looking
like an “old” lager without much to say for itself
anymore.

*Heineken-commissioned Internal Report, "UK MT Commercial Review", Les Murphy, 2012

Always the Bridesmaid
The problem wasn't getting people to know or drink
our beer (we had 87% awareness and 71% total
trial) the problem was getting them to buy it more
often (only 2% said they picked us "most often")*.

Lager drinkers typically have a repertoire of at least

5 different brands to choose from*. Whilst we knew
we had a good product that was in our audience’s
consideration set, we weren't being chosen often
enough at the shelf or pump. Kronenbourg was
always the bridesmaid and never the bride.

If we were to create long-term sales growth and at

least maintain our share in what was a fragmenting
market, we needed to translate consideration into Source: Millward Brown Equity Debrief Q3 2012
purchase more often. Frequency was the key.

*Millward Brown Equity Debrief Q3 2012

** Mintel Beer Report December 2011
The Task: Standing for Something
Since 2000 the brand had (a little desperately)
employed eight different endlines from “Femme Fatale”
to “Slow the Pace” and everything in between, but
nothing had hit the mark with consumers nor crucially
inspired enough confidence in the brand team to last.
Heineken’s number one premium lager brand was
suffering from a lack of identity.

Kronenbourg needed to stand for something again and

become famous for it – but without the big budgets of
the market leader, Stella Artois (who historically
outspent us by more than 4 to 1*) and with less at-
pump presence* we didn’t expect this to happen
overnight. It would take time to change the habit of
consumers automatically defaulting to our omni-present
rival.

*Heineken-commissioned Internal Report, "UK MT Commercial Review", Les Murphy, 2012

** CGA rolling monthly MAT data 2010-2012 shows Kronenbourg 1664 as having only a quarter of Stella’s distribution on-trade
Taking the Long-term View
Our belief was that instead of “campaigning” we needed
consistent “brand building” and that only through steady AWARENESS
investment in one brand world could we ensure that our
smaller marketing budget could build incrementally by
continually reinforcing the memories in the mind that
would give us “mental availability”* and make us more UNIQUENESS
salient for the shelf, shopping list and pump. This was
how we would drive frequency and growth, for the long-
term.
QUALITY
Along the way our short-term, softer KPIs would provide
proxies for the fact we were going in the right direction. In
particular we would look to:
“IMPACT SCORES” FOR OUR LATEST
COMMUNICATIONS

*A term to denote mental salience as popularised by Byron Sharp in How Brands Grow, 2010
The Strategy
Heineken’s portfolio strategy drew the broad strokes of our
approach. Kronenbourg 1664 was to reclaim its “taste”
authority.

We had seen from blind taste tests that our beer was “tastier”
than our competitors. But how to deliver a seemingly generic
“it tastes great” message without just regurgitating the
research? That sounded more desperate than evocative.

We first delved into physiological aspects. Our unusual

strisselspalt hop was unique to Alsace, a region of France
widely regarded as “more German than French”. It gave
Kronenbourg 1664 its distinctively hoppy flavour and was
evocative of the elusive “taste” factor, but it also brought
provenance – a classically well-known driver of premiumness
in the alcohol industry.
The Strategy
The strategic breakthrough came from a consumer Our Continental competitors Stella and Peroni played
confusion. Yes, the story of our unique provenance from to a pretentious je ne sais quoi. Our opportunity was
Alsace was great, but where exactly is Alsace? No one to invert this, and everything our audience expected
really knew – or at least they weren’t confident. They of a French lager – our opportunity was instead to
could assume Kronenbourg was a French lager, thanks laugh at ourselves by creating a very un-serious,
to years of advertising which had landed this lone fact, hyperbolic, semi-mythical world of Alsace where
but could they put a pin in a map to show Alsace? Non. taste was everything. We would demonstrate the
difference of our French lager, by speaking the
We turned this lack of knowledge to our advantage. language of our British audience: humour.
Because let’s face it our audience was primarily British
men aged 35-49 and they didn’t like the French.
Hastings. Agincourt. We have a historical rivalry with our
closest neighbours that stretches back more than a
millennium.

The thing that aggrieved our audience the most? The

supposed inability of the French to laugh at themselves.
Vive L’Alsace Différence: 2012-2015
We didn’t want to create a campaign. We wanted to create a brand
world and then give it the room to breathe. Our semi-mythical Alsace
needed a few years and stories across multiple integrated channels -
and a great guide who could introduce us to the ways of the
Alsatians. We found this guide in Eric.

Legendary French footballer Eric Cantona embodied the authentic

quality of the Kronenbourg product, delivered with a “Gallic wink”.
With his help we launched big, beautiful, “epic” beer TV advertising
of old that landed our ever so slightly tongue-in-cheek new
proposition “A Taste Suprême” by telling our foundation story of the
special Kronenbourg hops - or more specifically of those that farmed
them. As Eric commented in our first film, we sought to show that in
Alsace things were “a little bit different”.
Vive L’Alsace Différence: 2012-2015
Vive L’Alsace Différence: 2012-2015

With hyperbolic humour we elevated the role of the hop

farmers of Alsace, showing them rewarded as “the
footballers of Britain”: people of excessive wealth and
status who drove blinged-up tractors and dated girls that
looked like models. In this upside-down world poor Eric had
to pretend to be a farmer to get the girl.

A series of fake news items online showed our farmers

denying that they enjoyed excessive lifestyles. So witty
were these films they even did the unthinkable: they gained
traction in France.

As a small budget brand that couldn’t afford to wear-out our

TVCs quickly, the “farmers” film aired for no less than three
years.
Vive L’Alsace Différence: 2015

In 2015 to supplement this and keep us top-of-mind

we launched “Le Big Swim” an online campaign that
evolved sequentially over social media.

With some surprising twists, clever audience

retargeting and “The Eric Effect” the campaign
managed to spark a very modern PR storm.

Four years in, everything from our social posts to

packs were part of the same integrated narrative and
quirky aesthetic. The brand was finally beginning to
stand for something. All we needed to do was hold
our nerve and not abandon Eric or Alsace for
something shiny and new - to remember we were
brand building, not campaigning.
Vive L’Alsace Différence: 2016

Our world was distinctive, but not yet strongly attached

to the name Alsace. We did this with a new TV-led
campaign that featured Eric introducing the noble
“Alsace-tians”: dogs that deliver barrels of
Kronenbourg 1664 to those deserving of its “Taste
Suprême” (much like the St. Bernard dog is famed for
delivering brandy to those in need of mountain
rescue).

To our British audience the Alsatian dogs featured

were Alsace’ most famous export. In the word
“Alsatians” we had a memory to latch onto.
Vive L’Alsace Différence

An accompanying PR campaign saw us launch the

first bar staffed by dogs and run a promotion to win
one of the Alsatian’s collars for your own pooch.

This drove consumer-generated content in-line with

our audience’s ownership and deep love of dogs –
something which we had surfaced in our pre-campaign
research.

We then retargeted our audience with Alsace-tian

puppy training content.

In the Alsace-tians we created a new icon for the

brand to rival even Eric himself – but most importantly
of all, these dogs were not part of a solitary campaign
but just another feature of an ever-expanding brand
world which will continue to develop into 2017.
The Business Results
We did what we set out to do. In 2016 alone our frequency increased +16.6% on the
previous year with an additional +6.9% increase in
We increased the frequency of regular purchase - and also penetration - switching data has showed this was
increased our overall penetration. primarily driven by stealing shoppers from Stella*.
The Business Results
In the on-trade, whilst the rate of sale for beer
overall has been in decline, since 2012 our rate
of sale has been climbing (and without our
having had significant losses in distribution that
could account for this). Kronenbourg 1664 is
simply selling faster today – even in a slowing
market.
The Business Results
In the off-trade too, four years of consistent brand
Off-­‐Trade  Volume  Share   building has finally reaped rewards, with growth
accelerating in 2016, seeing Kronenbourg deliver +
£16m in growth, an increase of +23.3%* - making it the
  fastest growing premium lager in the category, with a
+28.8% increase in volume share and a +22% increase
in value share, more than any brand in its
competitive set**.

Source: Nielsen/ Heineken Rolling Monthly Sales Data 2010-2016

*Nielsen/ Heineken Rolling Monthly Sales Data 2010-2016

** Mintel Beer Report December 2016
Communications Results
Importantly, when we de-seasonalise
this sales data using monthly averages
we see that Kronenbourg has not only
consistently out-performed expected
seasonal peaks and troughs but that
our media investment has had a
cumulative impact as part of one
consistent campaign - resulting in the
fact that 2016 can be called our most
successful year yet for
communications, in which ROMI
reached 1: 5.8 or £5.80 earned for
every £1 of marketing investment* -
more than double that for the earlier
creative campaign in in which ROMI
stood at only 1:2.5.

*CGA  rolling  MAT  Sales  Data  2011-­‐2016.  SMV/Heineken  Media  data  &  Agency  fee  data  supplied  by  Heineken.  Due  to  confidenFality  the  return  on  markeFng  
investment  has  been  calculated  using  a  generic  operaFng  profit  margin  of  16.5%  as  reported  in  Heineken  N.V  Financial  Results  2015.
Communications Results

How have we achieved this? Our

intention was always for long-term
brand building, and that’s exactly
what the soft metrics show:
Communications Results
What is most telling is the relationship between the Whilst the Alsace-tians TVC is undoubtedly a "good ad"
creative assets and consumer engagement. none of this would have been possible without what
came before it, as evidenced by the fact that our endline
A recent Link test for the Alsace-tians TVC recorded it was recalled double the global norm and Eric showed
as having the highest impact score of any Heineken UK up in the research as a heavily branded cue - more than
advert that Millward Brown has ever tested - in the 97th a quarter of people said he was the reason they
percentile - and more astonishing results for recognised it was an advert for Kronenbourg 1664,
persuasive power and distinctiveness. above even our “branded” barrels and glasses of beer*.

*Millward  Brown  Link  Test  "Alsace-­‐Tians"  June  2016  

 Marketing Taking the Credit

Perhaps the only consolation for writing an effectiveness paper that tells the tricky story of long-term brand building
finally paying off is that it should hopefully preclude a need to discuss the weather. But whilst neither seasonality nor
the football, nor even the Olympics should detract from the longer-term growth shown above (particularly as regards
brand share), we must admit that changes in 2016 to make 18, 10 and 4 pack can formats more available has indeed
been a part of driving the extraordinary sales success we have seen in this particular year.

Although the fact that these formats also carried Eric Cantona’s image as well as our Alsace-tians in reference to the
brand world marketing has built could perhaps make the argument that the sales are inseparable from the overall
impact of our communications.

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