The Brief

Our aim was to find out what makes a beer taste perfect, and then bottle the results. Ultimately, the goal was to produce Australia’s first ever crowd-brewed beer – a brew that perfectly reflects the tastes and drinking culture of our target market, with a ready built customer base created before the product even launched.

Creative Execution

Casella wanted to position this brand as innovative, clever and premium, so particular emphasis was placed on slick design, innovative media (e.g. iPhone, iPad, 3D cinema, lenticulars) and social interactivity. To generate enough buzz, we needed the right people talking about the project. But to do that, we had to do more than buy their influence. We had to create something they had never seen before and deliver it in a user-friendly way.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

The Perfect Lager Project aimed to create the perfect lager for our trendy, urban target market. To find out what they liked (and didn’t like), we created an iPhone app that captured information about the beers they were drinking and the environment in which they drank them. Over 100,000 data points were handed over to Casella’s master brewers, who then produced two potentially perfect lagers. The two brews launched simultaneously, with cases and 6-packs split 50/50. People were then asked to vote on facebook to keep their favourite. Because, in the end, there can only be one perfect lager.

Results

Almost 10% of the annual target ‘pre-sold’ before the beer had even launched. Top 30 iPhone app in iTunes Australia by downloads. Almost 10M earned media reach. Over 1M fans and friends of fans reached via social media channels. Almost 8000 beer ratings were collected from the app and over 100,000 data points were given to Casella Brewers for analysis. Call to arms video received over 50,000 organic views on YouTube. Over 30 different publications wrote about the launch.