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Covid-19 has accelerated the digitalisation of society
In the future, not only Generation Z will live "hybrid worlds" of analogue and digital, but also large parts of the (older) remaining population. For beverage producers and especially medium-sized breweries, this means that despite an immense longing for beer gardens and beer socialising, consumers will in future make even greater use of digital formats for information and entertainment. For breweries, it will be less a matter of "also being there somehow" on the internet, but rather of picking up consumers in their everyday lives as precisely as possible and in their hearts. A closer look at everyday contexts is worthwhile.
The basics of context marketing
Stimulus and information overload, leading to permanent distraction, are a major reason for increasingly opportunistic consumer buying behaviour. However, shrill attention-seeking does not promote sustainable brand loyalty. One reason for the loss of relevance: brands do not "mark" sufficiently with consumers. The brand (with its positioning pushed by marketing) signals too little through brand assets, has not anchored itself mentally enough in memory and routine behaviour in everyday life and appears too arbitrary and interchangeable in the environment of other suppliers.
Distinctive brand assets using the example of the Astra brandAnchor brand signals with consumers
Mentally strongly anchored brands are characterised by the fact that they have about four to five brand assets (brand signals) that are known to the users of a category (e.g. beer) and can be clearly assigned to competitors. Only a few brands succeed in anchoring their brand assets in the upper right quadrant. In particular, "smaller" regional brands with significantly lower awareness should avoid non-specificities or me-too implementations, as people usually assign imitations to market leaders, category players or opinion leaders (with higher advertising pressure).
Contexts are the key for brands
Today, engagement with brands is strongly dependent on situations and contextual conditions. This applies to decision-making (including directly at the POS or online) as well as later usage situations (e.g. cold drinks and nibbles for a shared Netflix evening at home). Contexts are much more key to attention and action today than in the past.
In a fraction of a second, our brain decides on the options that are right for us situationally and that meet our needs under the prevailing conditions (availability, experience, expectations, etc.) in a specific situation or in a situation anticipated for the future. For brands, this means that they must come to mind as the best possible solution in a context as quickly as possible and with a clear margin over alternatives. The stronger the links between a brand and contextual schemata, the greater the relevance of a brand in everyday life.
Motivated behaviour as a function of contextual conditionsContexts influence our subconscious
Contexts are perceptual spaces in which different facts have an effect and come together to form an overall picture. According to the context principle of philosophy, concepts only acquire meaning "in connection with something". Meaning only emerges when the context is known and understood (cf. Ohnemus, Lebok, Klaus: Context Marketing, Springer Gabler, 2021). The findings of Behavioural Economics keep reminding us: symbols, messages and brand signals only unfold their effectiveness when the prevailing contextual conditions sharpen the senses for them. We humans are always looking for an efficient solution to cope with our everyday requirements under the given contextual conditions - ideally with the help of a suitable brand.
Contexts usually influence our decision-making behaviour on an unconscious level. Therefore, context thinkers should observe, analyse and understand their target groups in context in order to establish alternative strategies for changing decision-making behaviour in favour of the brand. At K&A BrandResearch, we have decades of experience in applying psychodramatic techniques to help consumers re-experience everyday situations, both analogue and digital, so that they can be shaped by marketers.
Contexts enliven beer
In the typical situation of getting up early in the morning - staggering drowsily into the bathroom, with thoughts of the day's tasks ahead for us or our children - beer is unlikely to satisfy our situational needs in most cases. Kellogg's, Nespresso, bread, butter, toothpaste, Gilette, perfume and many others are probably more suitable everyday companions.
In fact, even beer in morning situations could be a relevant option for some people and in contextual niches via schema breaking as "breakfast beer". The example of the apparent impossibility of "beer in the morning" draws our attention to the fact that consumption can be quite possible if the conditions for it are created (via signals, messages, etc.) and the context has been (made) relevant for consumers and "beer" then intuitively opens up as a solution.
Allgäuer Engelbräu and occasion beers: role model for exquisite context marketing Trigger contexts via experiences
Beer in gastronomy or at events is comparatively easy to understand. The same applies to the marketing of seasonal beers such as Winterbock or Maibock or the idea of a light summer beer boldly conceived by the "small" Mahrs-Bräu in Bamberg. Imitating ideas in the regional environment can work, but more sophisticated are ideally occasion concepts developed from the everyday life of the local population, which take up regionally typical contexts of great popularity and instrumentalise them as a unique concept of their own brand.
Digital attempts to establish live tastings as an alternative to social-analogue interaction, for example, have been only partially successful. So far, beverages still play a comparatively minor role in online trade in Germany, but the tender successes of flaschenpost.de foreshadow future developments even in the "context of maximum convenience".
In the context of home delivery and digital marketing, influencers are also becoming increasingly influential in shaping opinion. Influencers can be ordinary consumers who are intrinsically motivated to share outstanding experiences with beverage brands, but also YouTubers with a wide reach. As with any marketing mix, influencers must fit into the brand strategy.
Small Beer – Context Hero!
Examples of contextual beer marketingExcellent examples
An excellent example of the (beery) revival of traditional Allgäu beer moments is provided by the "small" Engelbräu from Rettenberg: with "Viehscheidbier", "Brotzeitbier", "Feierobed" beer and others, the brewery plays on daily recurring moments that are appropriate to the region and which consumers particularly look forward to on occasion. Similar local culinary delights are "Hopfensau" (Hirschbräu), "Hopfenplücker-Pils" (Pyraser), "Hopfenzupfer" (Meinel) or the "Karpfen-Weisse" (Löwenbräu Neuhaus) and the "Schäfleshimmel" (Berg-Bräu).
Störtebeker succeeds in integrating region-specific names and at the same time appropriate contextual references with "Strandräuber", "Bernsteinweizen" or "Mittsommer-Wit". On the product side, the creative brewery Kehrwieder also integrates modern contemporary art design with coastal impressions via names like "Elbe" or "Über Normal Null", but also becomes more rocky-urban with "Road Runner" (like the city of Hamburg). In general, personifications make beers more personal, more distinguishable and more "distinctive" for beer lovers. Exemplary examples are: "Schlöbberla" (Greifbräu), "Gustl" (Bürgerbräu Reichenhall), "Smoky George" (one of the "power beers" of the Rittmayer brewery), "Opa's Liebling" and "Mutti's Sonnenschein" (Hertl), "Schwarze Anna" (Neder), "Schlappeseppel" (as a phoenix effect for Eder & Heyland's Bräu) or even "Erik The Red" at the 0.5-litre can specialist Faxe.
Even additives/adjectives/nicknames sometimes make a product "nicer" and stimulate the contextual mood of enjoyment. A "Happy Pils" (BRLO) simply makes people happier per se, the mood more special than drinking away a German 08/15 standard Pils at a case price of 9-11 EUR. And Wacken beers with names of Germanic deities make the beer-savvy heavy metal and play-it-loud scene relive Wacken and Valhalla while drinking.
Create new access to consumers!
So the beverage industry simply has to discover new contextual conditions for itself or develop them projectively from consumers' everyday lives. For small-scale distributed brands, the social media route is certainly also another way to get noticed faster in the future and pick up consumers contextually with pinpoint accuracy. Disruptive examples of this are the personal YouTube protest note by Mike Schmitt from Nikl-Bräu in Franconian Switzerland or the digital drive-in brewery show with product launch by Hachenburger in the Westerwald region.
A timely rethink in consumer contexts helps in any case. And paves new ways for regional smaller providers to become bigger with their consumers, in their everyday relevance and also with a little more wonder in their approach.
