Hoegaarden Beer – Positioning and Launching Campaign

Posted on January 18, 2009 |

Client: AmBev

Product: Hoegaarden Premium Beer

Date: December/ 2007

This is a fictional project developed at the Miami AdSchool, but based on a true briefing held by an AmBev Product Manager.

*Download original presentation here*

Background:

AmBev was going to launch a new beer at the Brazilian market: the Hoegaarden Premium Beer.

Imported from Belgium, the beer differs from the others as it takes wheat, coriander and dried orange peel on its composition. It also has a special cup to be served with, making it even more distinctive.

Demand:

AmBev wanted to know how to position and how to communicate its new product in such an important market.

Development:

After many researches and studies we found out that the Premium Beer´s consumer was someone who has achieved some professional and personal results, has conquered some space, and was now a bit different from what he/ she used to be.

Someone who has been “polished by life”.

Adding to that (and curiously) we noted out that the special cup used exclusively to drink Hoegaarden uses a six-sided bottom, different from all the other Premium Beers’ cups that share the same rounded bottom.

All that studies and observations led us to the communication insight:

“If you’re no longer the same, why does your beer have to be?”

Execution:

The creative execution was based on the concept “Hoegaarden – It is great to evolve” which was then developed to the slogan: “Hoegaarden – When you evolve, the world evolves”

The proposed communication was multidisciplinary including films and magazines ads, specific Point if Purchase and Point of Consumption activation, and also contextual actions, like sampling on flies departing from Belgium to Brazil.

Project Presentation:

The presentation was developed as a “Journey to the Beer World (Reis rond de Bierwereld – in Dutch)”, reflecting how premium beers´ consumers feel when tasting different bottles.

To strengthen its result all its main points were named as different cities and all the knowledge achieved through it “city” was presented as notes written on a diary.

The “journey” was planned as a round-trip which was (obviously) shaped as the brand hexagon. That helped, also, to reflect the communication insight.

As the trip started on the city of Hoegaarden, when we got back there with all the knowledge earned throughout the journey, we were not the same: we were polished by it!

» Filed Under activation, branding, campaign, creativity, planning, product launching