SITUATION:

The conflict in Ukraine has displaced over five million people so far, with thousands more moving every day. It’s one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in recorded history.

BRIEF:

How can we, the makers of Ukrainian’s most loved beer, help with the humanitarian efforts? How can we give back all the love Ukrainians have shared with us?

OBJECTIVES:

To drive maximum affinity with the cause by introducing a genuine Ukrainian beer directly to consumers, creating an easy way to donate money that’s sustainable in time.

We created “The beer with a Ukrainian heart”, the relaunch of Ukrainian’s most loved beer to a global audience for the first time with a full rebrand and a new purpose; To give people around the world the chance to try their first Ukrainian beer ever, and send all profits to Ukrainians in need.

During the Ukrainian crisis, we identified two key psychological barriers that stopped global audiences from getting personally involved. One was the distance paradox; the further a conflict takes place from us, the harder it is to emotionally connect to it, and the other was conflict exhaustion; even when people are emotionally connected to the issue, overexposure to it diminishes their capacity to sustain attention. In short, people feel powerless, which frustrates them, so they turn off. These psychological barriers wouldn’t be solved by shocking images on the news.

In our own small way, we wanted to create a different, sustainable bond between consumers and Ukrainians in need, so we targeted people living in western democracies with a love for beer and offered them a genuine local beer from the very place they’d want to help. We also wanted very much to give displaced Ukrainians everywhere a taste of home.

“The beer with a Ukrainian heart” is an initiative that inspired and rallied the entire global ABI network behind its cause. From helping our colleagues escaping Ukraine to find safe refuge, to getting Chernigivske’s brewmaster to work with his colleagues in our network to replicate the beer’s taste at a global scale. Immediately, we disrupted our main brands manufacturing process to ramp up Chernigivske’s production to 160.000 cans per hour in 14 countries. Then the original Ukrainian marketing team, now displaced around the world, reassembled to lead the launch efforts and make sure every shelf across Europe, Latin and North America, stocked Chernigivske. Thanks to our partners, we got donated media space to launch Chernigivske and created a whole suite of assets to tell its story, resulting in one of the fastest global beer launches ever in just 6 weeks.

6 weeks from idea to launch. One of the fastest global beer launches ever.

160,000 cans of Che produced per hour.

14 countries around the world producing it.

500 retailers signed up to stock Chernigivske.

3.2 million cans sold in the first two weeks in the UK alone.

US$ 5,000,000 in donations already guaranteed by ABI.

114,427,302 impressions in media coverage in the first week (UK alone).

91% Positive sentiment on social.

8.1 million cans expected to be sold in the next month (UK alone).

Brand recognition up by 1200%.