Situation:

After 5 successful years of being in business, Steve, the owner of the Garagista Brewery, decided to hang up his brewer's apron and sell the brewery.

The brief:

To sell the Garagista brewery in a way that lived up to the brewery's irreverent reputation.

The Garagista brewery is notorious for its irreverent, rule-breaking campaigns. Whoever bought the brewery needed to adopt this. So, instead of the usual business-selling channels, we created a beer to sell the brewery. Introducing For Sale Ale - a bittersweet IPA that’s a beer, but also an ad giving you a literal taste of the brewery you’re buying.

The packaging design wasn’t just inspired by classified advertising, it was an actual classified ad, which appeared in a major South African newspaper – The Argus. The classified ad was then reproduced as the label, limited edition bottle wrap and other collateral.

This approach enabled us to turn our beer into a media channel which targets potential brewery owners in the place they would definitely be looking – the beer fridge. It also ‘stole’ media space in stores where few craft beers have the budget to advertise.

Target audience:

Craft beer enthusiasts who had the guts, funds and passion to take on their own brewery. More often than not, these people were in high paying corporate jobs or younger entrepreneurs.

Approach:

In-line with Garagista's irreverent and sometimes notorious brand, we elected to step out of the usual business selling channels. After all, whoever was buying the brewery was also buying the brand and they needed to continue the story to maintain the loyal customer base. We also wanted to find a way of giving our audience a way of experiencing the product and the skills of the brewers. And what better way than with the actual liquid brewed by Garagista.

CTA:

Owning a brewery is as much a passion project as it is a business. And our audience would be likely living out their dream. So, what better CTA than 'Live the dream, call Steve..."

Implementation:

Once the bittersweet ale had been perfected, we bottled and distributed them. The label design started as a classified ad in a major newspaper, which we then turned into the label. The beers were then distributed to craft beer stores across the Western Cape in South Africa, as well as made available in the brewery.

Timeline:

The campaign ran for just under a month in May 2018.

Placement:

In the fridges of craft beer stores across the Western Cape in South Africa.

Scale:

540 bottles of For Sale Ale were distributed.

The initiative cost a mere €640 and managed to sell half the brewery in the same month the campaign launched. This resulted in a very respectable 150:1 ROI on the packaging investment.