Is triggering patriotism the way forward?
How can you effectively
capture the attention of the market? Well for one, it helps when you appeal to
something that’s held sacred within a target audience.
Their sense
of pride.
Take ‘America’ for example. Budweiser temporarily
renamed its brand ‘America’ for the American summer in 2016. The rationale behind
it was to reverse the company’s sales slump and steal the conversation in a
very congested period for the States (Presidential election race, Olympics,
Copa America were on during this period).
The mission? Make a bold statement.
Regain relevance. Reverse the sales slump. Steal the conversation. (Jom Socquet
VP Marketing, Global, AB InBev)
This was a
time where the term ‘American’ was debated, evaluated, glorified and
celebrated. They wanted to commemorate
this ‘the most American summer ever’ by tapping into the people’s pride,
conveying the statement ‘Budweiser is America and America is Budweiser’.
So as part
of the rebranding to ‘America’, Budweiser
changed the packaging of it’s cans and bottles to reflect this.
The results for
Budweiser were extremely favourable. The total of all the media coverage contributed
to 1.6 billion total impressions worldwide, which was far greater than all it’s
TV spots for Superbowl 50. They also grew its sales-to-retailer volume for the
first time in a year. Consumers also perceived the brand more positively, with favourability
ratings increasing to 57%.
Budweiser
recognised the power in the sense of patriotism for American’s that summer. The
word ‘America’ to brand its product was used as the trigger. A
reason it was a successful trigger was because of the strong association
between Budweiser and America, which has been forged over many generations.
“It is an icon of core American values
like optimism and celebration” (Budweiser)
The choice
of trigger was a defining factor in the success of Budweiser’s ‘America’ campaign,
but it must be asked – was their platform of using patriotism to trigger a
desired response something for other marketers to follow?
Or did
Budweiser need the events of summer 2016 to help the campaign along?
Feel free to
discuss by leaving a comment below.
I like where you're going with this, what would you suggest for countries where patriotism doesn't have such a tangible identity? Brand that operate in areas where nationalistic traits aren't necessarily as clearly headlined as those in America? Would be interested to see what you think might be a comparable strategy for a similar product in a different country - how do you avoid stagnation
ReplyDeleteThat is true, patriotism is more tangible in America than most, but this is not to say that patriotism is dead elsewhere. South American countries like Brazil and Argentina are very patriotic and proud of their country, and a strategy in which patriotism is an integral appeal could very well work. Stagnation of the campaign is a natural enemy of such styles of campaigns, because patriotism often wears out after a while.
DeleteWhat direction would you take for a brand in a country such as Australia where some of our prominent "nationalist" traits are not necessarily seen as the most refined - i.e. our drinking culture, thongs, singlets etc. which may detract from the brand's ability to be taken seriously by the wider demographic?
ReplyDeleteHi Robert, thanks for the comment,
DeleteYeah this is a difficult one for Australia, as the culture around beer in Australia is so often associated with the many things you listed. However, where there's a problem, there's a solution.
Think backs to Toohey's New and their campaign where they ran various ads on traditional media like Tv and new media like YouTube, with their beer economy campaign. It was very successful in the sense that it changed people's perceptions of Toohey's as a brand that wasn't cool to drink with your mates.
It was a very smart way of promoting their brand without having to leverage what makes beer unpopular.