Hertog Jan is the #2 beer brand in the Netherlands. Climbing there through consistent focus on our brewery, brewers and beers, while leveraging the specialty beers for their halo effect on pilsener. In a category flooded with lager brands that focus on lifestyle (football, film, F1), we’re heading for the #1 position, surpassing the market leadership of Heineken.

With this product focus, product development is our best reason for communication. Our showpiece our the strategy is Grand Prestige Vatgerijpt: an exclusive beer that brings four new flavours annually. Created as the ultimate proof of our craftsmanship and to inspire beer lovers.

Previous editions caused a significant spike in brand engagement at launch, this time we engaged fans in the lead-up to increase excitement and brand power.

This edition our brewers aged Vatgerijpt in barrels of Portuguese dessert wines like Port. But in the beer world, sweet is not perceived as quality, 'The Paradox of Sweet' embraces the sweet wines and confronts fans with how craftsmanship can tear down previously held assumptions. A perfect reason to communicate what Hertog Jan stands for: Craftsmanship and high-quality beer.

Front-loading the story we added a product experience called the Voorproef Editie (First Taste): A taste experience where beer is paired with food and interactive films that brought fans and brewers together to deconstruct the flavours and discover what to expect in the final beer. Fans socially shared their experiences which accompanied an extensive online campaign, including tours and tastings. All this led to a launch that looked like a sneaker drop. Crowds gathered outside the brewery before sunrise; online, they queued half a day in advance.

Brand insight: Consumers perceive specialty beer as more qualitative and premium than lager. If brewers brew great specialty beer, their lager is naturally perceived as more qualitative. A halo effect.

Category insight: With the specialty category growing, we looked outside the category for something new. In Port we saw quality perception arise with maturation and scarcity, so barrel ageing beer could be an innovative and premium domain.

Product insight: Portugal as a sweet tooth nation is known for their dessert wines. However, in the beer world ‘sweet’ is not associated with quality and Vatgerijpt won’t be sweet after ageing.

Vatgerijpt is not about sales, but about strengthening our position towards all Dutch beer lovers (High-, medium-, low involved): Make the high involved experience Vatgerijpt and let the perception of quality trickle down to medium and lower involved by building on Portuguese craftsmanship to make them savour sweet.

The campaign started seven weeks before product launch, immersing beer lovers into ‘The Paradox’ with trailers and teasers. Our master brewers travelled with a film crew to Portugal to deconstruct the flavours of Vatgerijpt. On their tour along the four regions where the barrels came from, they visited local experts to explore the influence of Portuguese culture and craftsmanship on our Dutch beer. The Voorproef Editie (First Taste) contained four boxes with carefully selected ingredients, guided by the long format episodes. Culminating in a VIP tour and final tastings at the brewery, the excitement of fans increased dramatically. All brewer stories from Portugal and conversations from highly involved fans and influencers were the perfect fuel for an online and social media campaign. The Paradox of Sweet drew a diverse group of beers fans to the launch event and took the low involved through the story of craftsmanship.

(1) 37.000 bottles sold out in under 30min. (total revenue €925k - €25 per bottle), with 17.000 people queuing.

(2) 3000 fans showed up at our brewery (in a corner of the Netherlands), some already at 4AM.

(3) The demand for the Voorproef Editie (€80 per set) was 12 times higher (18K fans) than the available packs.

(4) Volume Market Share and Brand Power continue to grow in 2021 with +2.2pp and +0.5pp vs. Last year.

(5) The campaign was entirely self-funded with Vatgerijpt revenues.

(6) Vatgerijpt ensures a unique quality perception and price reality. It is a truly impactful proposition that provided unprecedented growth in volume and market share for Hertog Jan. Against all market conventions and with a modest SOV, Hertog Jan has grown faster than the competition, due to a distinctive creative brand strategy. We approach a historical #1 position in the home-country of Heineken!