The Danish beer giant is positioning itself as the original craft brewery as it looks to premiumise and drive up revenues and profit.
They are moving away from the traditional approaches of lager to try and stand out similar to that of a craft brand now - trying to use bold geometrics and graphical approaches exaggerating heritage, process and taste.
https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/08/29/carlsbergs-focus-craft/
Like many beer giants, Carlsberg is facing some tough challenges. Consumers are moving away from lager in favour of other alcoholic drinks, and mass-produced beer has been steadily overlooked for ‘craft’ drinks produced in small breweries.
As a result, beer volume sales have remained largely flat since 2012, around the 4.2 billion litres mark. Lager in particular is struggling, with volume sales falling from 3.18 billion litres in 2014 to an estimated 3.13 billion litres in 2016, according to Mintel figures.
Earlier this year, it launched a new ad campaign focusing on its Danish roots and history in a bid to lure people back into the lager category and fight declining sales.
And while volume sales are yet to recover, Carlsberg claims that the ad, which shows actor Mads Mikkelson cycling through different Danish landscapes, has been its “most successful piece of content in many years”.
Besides focusing on its Danish roots, the beer brand has increasingly positioned its products as a ‘premium’ option, and looked to align itself with craft by putting a greater emphasis on quality ingredients and taste.
Its ‘Export’ beer was given a makeover in November last year with a classier white packaging by brand design agency Taxi Studio, and in April Carlsberg brewed a 133-year-old lager in a bid to reclaim its “craft beer heritage”. It has also launched a craft beer portfolio, the Crafted Handbook, which showcases its own beers as well as some independents and Brooklyn Brewery beers, which it markets and distributes in the UK.
Despite this, Carlsberg insists the notion of ‘craft’ is highly subjective, and that it has firm roots in the category.
“We see ourselves as the first craft brewery, and we are exactly the same as [those] craft brewers launching their products today. The real difference is that we have managed to stabilise the quality and handling of the production so that we could make craft beer for the many. Small breweries are using the idea of craft being about small-scale brewing against us as a marketing tool,” says Thomas Lohren Busch, creative advisor consultant at Carlsberg.
Its focus on quality and craft seems to have paid off. Carlsberg’s craft and specialty division saw a 25% increase in volume sales during the six months to 30 June, in part due to the company launching craft versions of existing brands.
Lohren Busch says its craft background also sets itself apart from its two biggest competitors – AB InBev and Heineken.
“We are today the world’s third largest brewery, and it’s quite a distance [between us and the two others]. They have a different story than we do, we actually have a craft brewing story that is true and real. I’m not trying to badmouth them, but they didn’t start the same way we did. That’s what makes Carlsberg different,” he says.
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