Kathleen Firment,
strategist!
The ask:
Own a cultural moment for a challenger brand.
The brand:
Pabst Blue Ribbon
The methodologies:
Drank at Richmond’s top PBR spot and became an expert in Pabst fandom.*
The big dog:
Anheuser Busch, a.k.a Big Beer.
*Site VIsits, Informal Interviews, Desk Research, Social Listening, Competitive Analysis, Comms Planning, and Budget Preparation
It's time for Pabst to take down Big Beer once and for all.
™
Particularly Anheuser Busch, who currently owns half of the mainstream light beer market and spends over 7 BILLION DOLLARS in advertising per year.
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In comes our challenger: Pabst Blue Ribbon.
A scrappy, personality-filled brand that spends ~0.002% of
Anheuser’s budget on advertising a year.
So we thought, what's a big dog holiday that we can take on?
Thanksgiving? Maybe. But there's a problem.
The big guys already spend big bucks on Thanksgiving.
(Big enough $$$ that the second-ever "Dilly Dilly" ad aired on Thanksgiving 2017!)
The market is wayyy too crowded and expensive for PBR to find a way in.
So, while the big guys all compete for a slice of that Thanksgiving pie, PBR can go for Thanksgiving's cooler, younger sibling:
FRIENDSGIVING!!!
Friends • giv • ing:/ˌfrɛndzˈɡɪvɪŋ/
[noun] Like Thanksgiving, but with friends, not family.
And with even more beer.
Friendsgiving has become a cultural phenomenon.
1 in 5 Americans
attend at least one a year!
So, if Friendsgiving is a beer-fueled friend fest of a holiday, Who’s bringing the booze?
In comes our target: the low effort guest. We all know them. And love them. They’re the friend that didn’t cook anything and comes late with a case of beer in hand.
1. Make PBR THe clear choice for friendsgiving-beer-bringers.
2. make pbr seem like an extraordinary friendsgiving contribution.
We had two goals.
Naturally, we came up with Turkey Beer.
"What is Turkey beer?", you may ask, horrified.
A special edition case of PBR that’ll make friends think *for a second* that you brought a high effort Friendsgiving contribution: The Turkey!
They’ll quickly discover it’s actually a case of PBR disguised as a Turkey.
*And not just any old PBR’s are in this Turkey, they’re turkey flavored special edition cans.
And yes, this could work. There is actually already a place in the market for savory and specialty beers. Turkey flavor would fit right in, IMHO.
We’ll meet our low effort guests where they are...In gas station beer caves across the United States, where they are most likely buying their beer on the way to the party.
And on social media, where paid ads will only run the week of Thanksgiving,
in the spirit of last-minute-ness.
Why this works:
01 / We're meeting our drinkers where they already are.
Our audience is most likely to buy their beer at the convenience store. We’re meeting them where they are, last minute and all.
Source: MRI Simmons
02 / It's the right fit.
Our audience loves hanging out with friends, and considers themselves forgetful but funny.
Source: MRI Simmons
03 / Nobody else is doing this.
No other beer brands are capitalizing on the cultural moment that is Friendsgiving. Or making turkey flavored beer. We can be the first.