While everyone in the PR industry agrees that content is king and those of us is in the PR agency world can communicate via new method directly, I discuss many different PR success stories in my PR book “For Immediate Release.”
Here a book excerpt on how to succeed in the beverage PR industry with pr:
Champagne PR on a Beer Budget – On the heels of summer, traditionally the highest sales period of the beer industry, 5WPR was challenged with the task of maintaining a personal connection between Grolsch and its consumers while on a limited budget.
Although Grolsch is a major beer brand in Europe, it was considered a high-end specialty beer in the United States; a tiny brand when we worked with them.
One of the challenges of working with Grolsch Premium Lager was competing with the budgets of the Heinekens of the world. To increase brand recognition, our goal was to secure celebrity affiliation and association with Grolsch as a man’s drink—the hardest part was spending no more than five figures while at it.
Men’s charity causes are tough. For women, there’s breast cancer and other recognizable and talked-about causes. How many men really want to talk about subjects like illness, death, and disease—things that make them feel very vulnerable? Still, we needed a cause that was relevant to Grolsch’s demographic, which skewed more adult male than college frat boy. Our team identified prostate cancer as the cause for our campaign—one in six men will get prostate cancer. We then researched legitimate 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in the field of prostate cancer. Our choice was the National Prostate Cancer Coalition (NPCC), which is a leader in raising awareness and funding for prostate cancer research and treatment.
We approached the NPCC, which was pleased to partner with Grolsch and allow its name to be used (in exchange for the proceeds from the auction as a donation). Finding an organic way to involve celebrities and harness their power to attract great media was the next challenge. Prostate cancer is a serious issue and not easy to talk about. The creative concept we arrived at was Grolsch Pop Art: having celebrities hand-paint and autograph Grolsch Swingtop bottles, which would then be auctioned off on eBay, with proceeds going to the NPCC.
The Grolsch Swingtop was something beer drinkers knew about and saw as a distinctive, likeable attribute of the brand. This campaign provided a unique opportunity to have celebrities brand Grolsch Swingtop bottles and raise awareness
for a major issue in men’s health.
The campaign positioned Grolsch as both socially responsible and as an elite beverage that could be enjoyed by the American male.
(To be continued tomorrow)…
