28 Apr 2009
By: Paul Mitchell
In the world of marketing, one of the mainstream practices is to use celebrities to help sell your products. There have been some incredible successes (such as Michael Jordon or Tiger Woods with Nike) as well as a few notable failures (the Olsen twins advocating the health benefits of milk). Beer makers, along with other beverage companies, are no different in their interest to utilize this particular channel. Recently, Innis & Gunn, a Scottish brewery of barrel-aged beers, recently announced their agreement with Gordon Ramsay, notable celebrity chef and loyal Scotsman. Will this partnership yield the success that the brewery hopes? Only time will tell. However, if experience and the theoretical dynamics of celebrity endsorsements hold true, then the inevitable results should be considerably more predictable.
Probably the most successful celebrity endorsements with regard to beer stem from the 1970's Miller Lite "Tastes Great, Less Filling" campaign. The television and print creative used popular athetes sitting in a bar room atmosphere debating the merits of the light beer. At a time when light beer was not considered manly for most men, the humour and tie-in with sports heroes worked really well. The ads changed popular attitude and made Miller Lite a top seller.
Other celebrity ensoresements in the beer world have not worked as well. Although really humourous, a huge cast of notables (that included Oscar De La Hoya, Burt Reynolds, Jim Kelly and Triple H) in the Budweiser "Men of the Square Table" Man Laws series failed to increase sales. Eric Clapton tried to endorse Michelob while he was going through detox and rehabilitation for substance abuse, and Harrison Ford embarrassed himself in a bizarre Kirin ad campaign. Although celebrity endorsements seem like an easy method to capture new eyes, it can be a costly and defeating process if not handled correctly -- and as only one channel in a proper marketing mix.
For celebrity endorsements to work well, the celebrity has to be appealing and popular, authentically perceived as an authority in their field of expertise (ie. actor, athlete), and related in a meaningful way to the product and its customers. If there is any dissonance between the intended message and the audience, the partnership will not work. These rules explain why audiences scratch their heads at times when some spokespeople are chosen for products that would otherwise seem alien to them. A lot of the ads with Olympic athletes discussing their affection for McDonalds fast food come to mind. Endorsements also will not be able to turn heads on its own. An endorsement is only as good as the reach it gets through all marketing efforts.
The concept behind the Innis & Gunn campaign is to demonstrate how matching good beer with food can make dining experiences much more enjoyable. In this respect, Gordon Ramsay seems like a good fit. Ramsay is considered an expert in dining, and is popular and well spoken (despite the profanities). He is not, however, an expert with regard to beer. I am sure he drinks it, and gets a lot of free samples from brewers, but he is certainly not an authority. I can't think of too many popularly recognizable beer experts however.
The subject of matching beer with food has become trendy only in recent times. People have always enjoyed beer with dinner, but perhaps without as much of thought as wine enthusiasts and wine writers spend on it. The suspicion is that food/beer pairing is simply a more fashionable way of attracting new and more sophisticated drinkers away from the wine market. After all, while beer sales remain flat, growth in wine sales in Canada has been growing quickly (26% in 2008) despite modest growth in rest of New World and falling sales in Europe.
Bringing Ramsay on to endorse beer with dinner is an attempt to steal market share from wine consumers, clear and simple. It seems like a good plan, and Ramsay can not hurt the effort. The degree of the campaign's success lies outside of just signing the celebrity. The question will be how Innis & Gunn will exploit the good idea and spread it out through all their marketing, hopefully with other brewers and beer associations following suit. The potential is definitely there.
Source:
Brewer drafts in Gordon Ramsay to prove beer's the new wine
Published Date: 27 April 2009
In the world of marketing, one of the mainstream practices is to use celebrities to help sell your products. There have been some incredible successes (such as Michael Jordon or Tiger Woods with Nike) as well as a few notable failures (the Olsen twins advocating the health benefits of milk). Beer makers, along with other beverage companies, are no different in their interest to utilize this particular channel. Recently, Innis & Gunn, a Scottish brewery of barrel-aged beers, recently announced their agreement with Gordon Ramsay, notable celebrity chef and loyal Scotsman. Will this partnership yield the success that the brewery hopes? Only time will tell. However, if experience and the theoretical dynamics of celebrity endsorsements hold true, then the inevitable results should be considerably more predictable.
Probably the most successful celebrity endorsements with regard to beer stem from the 1970's Miller Lite "Tastes Great, Less Filling" campaign. The television and print creative used popular athetes sitting in a bar room atmosphere debating the merits of the light beer. At a time when light beer was not considered manly for most men, the humour and tie-in with sports heroes worked really well. The ads changed popular attitude and made Miller Lite a top seller.
Other celebrity ensoresements in the beer world have not worked as well. Although really humourous, a huge cast of notables (that included Oscar De La Hoya, Burt Reynolds, Jim Kelly and Triple H) in the Budweiser "Men of the Square Table" Man Laws series failed to increase sales. Eric Clapton tried to endorse Michelob while he was going through detox and rehabilitation for substance abuse, and Harrison Ford embarrassed himself in a bizarre Kirin ad campaign. Although celebrity endorsements seem like an easy method to capture new eyes, it can be a costly and defeating process if not handled correctly -- and as only one channel in a proper marketing mix.
For celebrity endorsements to work well, the celebrity has to be appealing and popular, authentically perceived as an authority in their field of expertise (ie. actor, athlete), and related in a meaningful way to the product and its customers. If there is any dissonance between the intended message and the audience, the partnership will not work. These rules explain why audiences scratch their heads at times when some spokespeople are chosen for products that would otherwise seem alien to them. A lot of the ads with Olympic athletes discussing their affection for McDonalds fast food come to mind. Endorsements also will not be able to turn heads on its own. An endorsement is only as good as the reach it gets through all marketing efforts.
The concept behind the Innis & Gunn campaign is to demonstrate how matching good beer with food can make dining experiences much more enjoyable. In this respect, Gordon Ramsay seems like a good fit. Ramsay is considered an expert in dining, and is popular and well spoken (despite the profanities). He is not, however, an expert with regard to beer. I am sure he drinks it, and gets a lot of free samples from brewers, but he is certainly not an authority. I can't think of too many popularly recognizable beer experts however.
The subject of matching beer with food has become trendy only in recent times. People have always enjoyed beer with dinner, but perhaps without as much of thought as wine enthusiasts and wine writers spend on it. The suspicion is that food/beer pairing is simply a more fashionable way of attracting new and more sophisticated drinkers away from the wine market. After all, while beer sales remain flat, growth in wine sales in Canada has been growing quickly (26% in 2008) despite modest growth in rest of New World and falling sales in Europe.
Bringing Ramsay on to endorse beer with dinner is an attempt to steal market share from wine consumers, clear and simple. It seems like a good plan, and Ramsay can not hurt the effort. The degree of the campaign's success lies outside of just signing the celebrity. The question will be how Innis & Gunn will exploit the good idea and spread it out through all their marketing, hopefully with other brewers and beer associations following suit. The potential is definitely there.
Source:
Brewer drafts in Gordon Ramsay to prove beer's the new wine
Published Date: 27 April 2009
