A clever New Zealand brewery is being applauded for selling beer to blokes by telling them that it was wine.
DB Breweries is winning headlines globally thanks to its funny instore marketing campaign for a failing beer label.
The brewery began its instore campaign for DB Export Dry with the insight that men were a little miffed by wine.
It says it found many men sometimes drank wine because of social pressures at special events, like weddings or work parties.
The insight came with a major objective: reverse DB Export Dry’s 15 year sales decline in the New Zealand market.
The sales drop was thought to be because of the beer’s old fashioned persona, which wasn’t resonating with younger men.
The solution? DB Breweries gave its shoppers what they really wanted – beer – but dressed up as a retro bottle of wine.
It did this by making up a fake bottle of plonk with the tongue in cheek name “Chateau Crapio”.
The bottle was promoted in liquor stores as an actual bottle of wine, but upon closer inspection not all was as it seemed.
The fake wine bottles featured the tagline, “you don’t have to do this”, and a back label with clear instructions.
“OK, don’t panic. You’re in the wrong section. We’re going to get you out of this mess and get you some beer,” read the labels.
“Nod and rub your chin. Turn the bottle in your hand and quietly say ‘Exquisite’.
“Then walk over to the counter, get this bottle scanned, and you’ll receive $5 off a box of Export Dry. OK, go.”
The impressive results
DB Export Dry sales rose by a huge 20 per cent in New Zealand and reversed the brand’s ailing performance in the market.
In just one week, instore sales increased by a whopping 350 per cent.
Jon Bird, CEO of Ideaworks, told Inside Shopper this campaign is one of his favourite shopper marketing campaigns in the last few years.
“I really loved this. It demonstrated a really deep insight of both consumer and shopper behaviour,” he says.
“They understood what was going on from a consumer perspective and span it out into a lot of fun advertising.
“It was a really cool idea. You can’t bore people into buying.”
