And they won the “Best National Campaign” award for that.
I’m lovin' it, Open happiness and Its finger lickin good, these are a few of the most famous taglines in the world. But what would happen if McDonald's were to say “I’m not loving it” or Coca-Cola said “Let’s not open happiness” or KFC said, “It’s not finger lickin good”? It would be pretty crazy to think that by doing this any of these brands will gain more customers but would rather incur a much heavier loss.
Carlsberg, probably the best beer in the world, or as they say it, in 2019 launched an OOH (out of home) campaign called “Probably Not” where they publicly accepted that their beer apparently was not the best beer in the world and apologized for it. Funny enough, by doing this, they won the “Best National Campaign” award at The Drum Out of Home awards 2019. But why did they do it? A little back story!
For quite some time now, Carlsberg has been facing a decline in sales, especially in the UK market and the UK Twitter saved the company a lot of dollars in research as they were very vocal about why they didn’t like the brand anymore. As a part of this campaign, Carlsberg accepted all the mean tweets thrown at them and turned it into an opportunity by making a series out of it where they made their employees read those tweets and recorded their live reactions.
To give you an example, have a look below.
Not only this, they actually promoted a lot of mean tweets on Twitter (more on this later)
But what was their idea behind doing all of this?
Here Comes the Strategy! Fold 7, the creative agency behind this whole campaign decided to go brutally honest in this case. Carlsberg realized their mistake, actually, that whilst focusing a bit too much on the quantity, they somewhere lost the quality that made their beer probably the best in the world. Acknowledging their failure, they paid a visit to their roots by introducing the new “Danish Pilsner”.
But they knew introducing a new product just like that won’t become a success as people still had this perception that their beer is just not good and they are not doing anything about it. Enter the “Probably Not” campaign.
Step 1- Before the brand was to introduce the new product, they first wanted to create a buzz on social media and wanted everyone (mostly the UK market) to talk about Carlsberg. So first, they addressed the elephant in the room, and not only that; they embraced it. How? Well, to get people talking, they found the meanest of tweets written about Carlsberg and started promoting it. Yes, you read that right. Carlsberg spent money to promote bad tweets about them. As people were again chatting about the brand, they needed something to back this up, so they installed small billboards and posters at places where it just said “Carlsberg, probably not the best beer in the world”. The first phase was a success, people were tweeting about the brand now but the major part comes now.
Step 2 - Now that people were talking about the brand, Carlsberg saw the right window and introduced their all-new Danish Pilsner - completely re-brewed from head to hip. And to maximize the impact, they decided to go all-in with their OOH campaign by buying out spaces for their billboards at prime locations. Blending both, the digital and the non-digital aspect of this campaign, a decent amount of awareness was built in the eyes of the people.
Why is it a brutally honest campaign? Well, have a look below.
Step 3 - In the final stage of the campaign, Carlsberg got the chit-chat among their customers they were looking for and it worked out pretty well for them but it was just not enough so they went one step further and a little personal this time.
“That was just the beginning. We had to prove ourselves with our very worst critics. So, each and every social media comment was replied to, settling the debate the only way we knew how — by buying them a pint of our new Danish Pilsner, closing the loop on the conversations we started.”
Carlsberg did a fantastic job with this campaign and gave an excellent insight that accepting one’s mistake and working on it actually does help and has set an example of why reading your customer's feedback is so necessary. The brand is now focusing on giving itself a more premium touch,
— “We say premiumization but we’re not suddenly going to try to be a super niche premium brand,” he says, adding: “The competitors are a combination of the standard and the standard plus brands. It is still Carling and Foster’s, two of the biggest brands in the market. But it is also looking at brands like Amstel, Coors Light, Bud Light within that competitive set.”
And also, they are now expanding their target market towards women, — “Boosting Carlsberg’s appeal among women. Another area where Carlsberg will focus more is on appealing to women. Both Woods and Newton admit lager marketing in the past has been about “lads, pints, football” but is now changing as socializing changes to focus less on quantity and more on the quality of the experience.” With this wonderfully thought-out campaign, Carlsberg is starting to get back in the game and is fixing a lot of its mistakes by repositioning the brand but also while not compromising on quality.
Let’s see if Carlsberg can “Probably” become the best beer in the world.