We were tasked with releasing a new beer into an already crowded low-carb beer market; a market dominated by international beer brands who were running functional, health centric messaging. To make matters worse, the mainstream beer market was in decline across the board. Our objective, was to gain a significant market share in the first 6 months, or risk having the beer discontinued.

We asked New Zealand to drink our low carb beer.

Not for the taste. Not for their health. Not even for themselves.

We asked them to drink it for the people they love.

“I’m Drinking It For You.”

Instead of running ads telling drinkers how few carbs our beer has, like all our competitors, we launched a full length romance ballad on Valentine’s Day that turned every beer into a selfless gesture for those you love.

By releasing a song instead of an ad we managed to insert our brand into culture, and lodged our message into the hearts, minds, and music charts of New Zealand’s beer lovers.

Having a beer was generally seen as a selfish indulgence. So we decided to arm our drinkers with the ultimate excuse to have a beer – we positioned DB Export Gold Extra Low Carb as the beer you could drink for your loved ones. After all, the low carb benefit was one everybody in your life could share.

This allowed us to step away from the functional percentage driven claims all of our competitors were making and into an emotional space that fit perfectly with New Zealand culture.

Released on Valentine’s Day, an ordinary Kiwi couple sing a full-length, earnest love song about all the romantic things they can do for each other while holding a beer. The song was released on all major music platforms, and targeted to listeners using Spotify’s in-depth listening data, crafting a new intro to the song based on listeners’ relationship status, activities, music interests, or time of day.

The song, with full accompanying music video, quickly earned a #2 spot on the charts as well as airtime on radio. It was supported with pub tours, radio interviews, singing telegrams, gift site partnerships, airings on gym/retail radio, and karaoke machines.

The song gained 5M views (in a country of 4.7M), reached #2 on the Apple music charts, and earned the highest ad engagement and recall statistics in any category in NZ. The campaign was so successful that sales met 8 month targets in just two weeks and outperformed the 2nd best beer launch by 300%. In a market where all mainstream beer brands were in decline, DB Export managed to grow the category by +8%.