Castle Lager: Taking a Brand Stand

In the realm of brands, labels rule supreme. They differentiate, they inform, they identify. They are worn with pride, selected with care and displayed as a show of group solidarity, or individual preference. Labels are a bottom line imperative. A crucial part of the marketing mix. Without them, a brand is simply a product.

So when AB-InBev’s Castle Lager announced, in a simple tweet, that it would lose its label, South Africans started talking. For 133 years the Castle Lager label has stood not only as an identifier of the country’s biggest beer brand, but more importantly as a symbol of national unity and friendship. Of nationalism that transcends racial, cultural, and socio-economic boundaries.

But it wasn’t enough. The time had come for the brand to take a real stand.

Castle Lager was facing tough times. With stiff competition from premium beer brands, and the fast-growing spirit category, mainstream beer was losing ground in the crucial 18-24 year old market. The brand team, together with Ogilvy South Africa was tasked with turning what appeared to be an inevitable tide.

Not only that, but it was tasked with doing so in the face of an increasingly polarised society, in which the Castle Lager dream of a Rainbow Nation was fading faster than the lights at Eskom. Racial outbursts were making headlines daily and while we had long since moved past Apartheid, we were more fractured than ever because of divisive racial outbursts and ingrained biases.

This behaviour was driving wedges of misunderstanding and distrust between people from different racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, ensuring that we remain a nation divided. The insight we needed to address was that as a nation we had become preconditioned to label and stereotype one another.

No Big Brand Ad, in the history of Big Brand Ads, was big enough to take on the challenge. Castle Lager needed to do something different. And something drastic. So it took a Brand Stand.

The campaign began with a single tweet, that made millions of connections, with millions of people across the country. And it grew from there, into a fully-integrated campaign, complete with film, social media and branded content, an influencer campaign and even tactical opportunities at events ranging from rugby matches and international soccer games to Mzansi Pride. All with one single intent: to #SmashTheLabels that divide South Africans, in order to help us see past the stereotypes by which we define each other.

In a world where labels keep us apart, castle lager wanted to be the one brand that brings us back together.

The campaign culminated with Ab-Inbev releasing 4.4 million bottles of Castle Lager to over 8 000 stores across the country. With no labels. The #SmashTheLabel campaign was born of the belief that the new generation of beer drinkers are tired of talk with no action. They expect big business and big brands to stand up for what they believe in.

And when a big brand like Castle Lager takes a public stand, and follows it through by actually sending its brand out into the marketplace without a label, they take note - 199 Million of impressions worth. Judging by the results of the campaign, they also follow through.

Over the campaign period, sales of Castle Lager increased by an incredible R93 million achieving a massive R293 million via incremental growth for the full fiscal. That’s equivalent to almost 30 million bottles sold vs. the previous year.

More importantly, the Castle Lager brand is back where it belongs - in the hearts and minds of South African beer drinkers.

By taking a stand for what it believes in, AB-InBev’s Castle Lager captured the imagination of the nation. But more importantly it shifted the national psyche, with 53%1 of consumers acknowledging that the campaign lead them to be more tolerant of those different from themselves.

“It’s not easy to top the emotional campaigns that Castle Lager has created over the years, but #SmashTheLabel did just that, not only smashing our preconceived ideas about how the brand should communicate with its audience, but also smashing our expectations, and all of our marketing and sales targets. And then some.

“To say that we were nervous about losing our label is an understatement. But you know what they say about big risks and big rewards!” said Vaughan Croeser, brand director, Castle Lager, Ab-Inbev.