We’re all Red Inside

1. Market situation

Jupiler is one of the historical partners of the Red Devils. For more than 30 years, Jupiler is supporting the players, celebrating the victories, and encouraging the one-day-fans and forever-fans in all situations. Indisputably, this partnership creates visibility and likeability for the brand. But it's more than that. Jupiler and football share the same belief: 'In union, there is strength'. In other words, Jupiler and football both believe in the power of the group to make all individuals better. But 2021 was a special year, mostly special because the 'Golden generation' was playing; again.

Obviously, Jupiler wasn't the only one to capture that cultural insight. Official partners and non-official partners would all play the Euro Cup game too. So, while partnering with the Red Devils and supporting them for decades was supposed to bring us more visibility, it would drown Jupiler into a sea of sameness in 2021. Especially, a red sea of sameness.

Even more difficult: the lager market was declining in market share year over year by 2% over the past 10 years. Yet, new Ab Inbev budget policies due to Covid measures had forced us to cut almost half of the Net Media investments for the Euro Cup 2020 campaign (-45,1% in 2021 versus 2018). So just dominating the share of voice would have proven to be difficult.

We had to steal the show to catch's people attention and make Jupiler the only essential drink to support the Red Devils.

2. Objectifs

1. Create brand love and put the lager on the menu again
2. Aim to maintain the Market Share of Jupiler in challenging Covid times despite -45,1% total net media budget

3. Strategy

• Insight: Fans are superstitious. Football might be played by 22 players and supported by an entire nation, but we still feel like the game's result depends on our individual acts.
• Problem to solve: How to make sure we don't leave anything to chance and do our very best to support the Red Devils?
• Strategy: As the brand that unites, and for our collective good, Jupiler decided to urge everyone to leave absolutely nothing to chance by creating the ultimate supporter symbol.
• Core creative idea: A red beer. A common symbol to unite behind the Red Devils all together, the beer of the supporter and Jupiler symbolic action to leave nothing to chance.
• Integrated Plan:
  1. Pre-launch | Seeding: changing the colour of your iconic product is audacious, right? However, we were aware it could also create some rejections. The colour of a product is as important as the taste and the texture. The colour is what makes it different, recognizable, and likeable. To create a massive adoption and avoid rejection, we decided to embark Roberto Martinez on our colourful adventure. If the football national team's official coach was visibly collaborating with Jupiler to create the most essential supporter's drink ever, Belgians wouldn't put the colour into question. This symbol of national unity and support to the Red Devils was announced in April 2021 with 3 different teasers. To optimize our budget, we shifted TV budget to online video (+21% net media investments in OLV in 2021 versus 2018) and the 3 teasers were released on the major social media platforms.
     
     
  2. Launch | Installing: Once announced, the special red beer was put on sale alongside the traditional gold Jupiler in stores and bars. Yes, we didn't replace the gold one, we really created a product innovation enlarging the Jupiler range for a limited period. Most importantly, it was sold at the same price as the classic Jup'. In bars throughout Belgium, the beer was served on tap, accompanied with special glasses featuring the portraits of Belgian football players. In stores, the red beer was available in cans only, since bottles allowed less customisation possibilities. Throughout most supermarkets and other food and drinks shops, Jupiler Red lived alongside other 'normal' beers.

4. Results

1. Jupiler Red has been recognized as the biggest short-term value¹ creation of any FMCG innovation launched in 2021 and 3rd biggest over all FMCG brands launched of the past 5 years, according to Nielsen IQ, right behind Spa flavoured and Fuze tea.
2. Despite -45,1% budget media spent, we grew MS in total Belgium by +0,7% (48,1% in 2021 vs 47,5% in 2020) by selling 27.543hl of red beer in only 8 weeks, more than a regular lager in Belgium like Cristal sells in a year. We succeeded to make more than 1 out of 100 beers sold in Belgium during the world cup a red one and more over grew total Jupiler volumes with 14%. We outperformed the market by growing in a declining lager market.
3. Additionally, the campaign caught PR attention and generated an estimated €1M in earned media through an impactful PR Launch & Red Beer announcement. This is about half of our yearly media budget in 2021.

¹ How much net revenue over the period it was sold the first six month in market
(# of Jupiler sold x price it was sold for - taking into account promo)