BREWTROLEUM

Gold Spike

Case Film

Presentation Image

TitleBREWTROLEUM
BrandDB BREWERIES
Product / ServiceDB EXPORT
CategoryD01. Acquisitions
EntrantCOLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
Idea Creation COLENSO BBDO Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
PR SPARK PR & ACTIVATE Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Credits

Name Company Position
Neville Doyle Colenso BBDO Planning Director
Nick Worthington Colenso BBDO Creative Chairman
Brodie Reid Colenso BBDO Senior Business Director
Scott Chapman Colenso BBDO Senior Producer
Brett Colliver Colenso BBDO Senior Art Director
Jen Storey Colenso BBDO Head of Broadcast
Nick Harvey Colenso BBDO Experiential Business Director
Andy Blood Colenso BBDO Executive Creative Director
Matt Lawson Colenso BBDO Copywriter
Angela Watson Colenso BBDO Head of Account Management
Lucy Grigg Colenso BBDO Project Director
Andy McLeish Colenso BBDO Head of Planning
Tim Bullock Scoundrel Director
n/a SparkPHD Media Agency
n/a Spark PR PR Agency
Andy Routley DB Breweries Managing Director
Maud Meijboom-van Wel DB Breweries Marketing Director
Sean O'Donnell DB Breweries Marketing Director
Tony Wheeler DB Breweries Marketing Manager
Simon Vicars Colenso BBDO Creative Group Head
Andre Sallowicz Colenso BBDO Creative Group Head

The Campaign

DB Export has always been a beer that had led the way in New Zealand – the creative platform that this work was operating under was ‘DB Export – Made By Doing’ which celebrates the pioneering history of both the beer and also its foudner, Morton Coutts. Our idea was to turn drinking beer into a selfless act of environmental heroism. So we took the surplus yeast leftover after we finished brewing DB Export, and used it to create a biofuel called DB Export Brewtroleum. Brewtroleum emits 8% less carbon than traditional petroleum, so every time a man drinks DB Export, he’s helping to save the entire world.

Creative Execution

Across all consumer facing communications, we called on men of New Zealand for their help. The world these days faces many threats, but by simply drinking DB Export, they could help save the entire world. We launched with our hero site – a completely rebranded Gull petrol station in the middle of Auckland. Promoting this location with radio partnerships we experienced kilometre long queues down the street on our first day. Supported by digital, social, outdoor and TV, Brewtroleum rolled out to every single one of the 62 Gull petrol stations across New Zealand for 6 weeks. This allowed nearly all New Zealanders the opportunity to fill their cars with Brewtroleum. We inserted in-pack vouchers for $5 off Brewtroleum fill ups and when they toped their car up, they received a discount voucher for DB Export Beer. This created a virtuous circle that helped drive sales of both beer and Brewtroleum.

Results

The most important result of this campaign was simple. In a beer market declining at 6% per anum, sales of DB Export grew by an unprecedented 10% making it the fastest growing beer brand in the country.   Up and down the country men rallied to the planet’s defence. Thanks to their dedicated drinking we turned 58,000 tonnes of yeast slurry into 300,000 litres of Brewtroleum. Brewtroleum was sold on pump at 62 stations around the country, meaning that consumers were essentially paying $2.05/litre for our piece of direct marketing.    During the campaign period 8.6 million bottles of DB Export were sold.   The campaign resulted in a 50,000kg reduction in carbon emissions, and DB Breweries went on to win the nation’s highest sustainability award.   Heineken are now rolling the idea out through 50 of their biggest global breweries, potentially saving millions of tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere.  

Despite the innovative nature of the ‘Brewtroleum’ campaign, this was at its heart a simple, direct response approach - ask consumers to do something very specific and then give them a good reason why they should. With the beer market in decline, we were faced with the need to drive an incredibly direct change in our consumers behaviour – to drink more beer. Without consumers responding and drinking DB, we would be unable to make the Brewtroleum biofuel. This gave every element of our campaign a clear and simple call to action – drink DB Export, save the entire world.

Men aged 25-34 are the biggest beer consumers both in New Zealand, and worldwide. This demographic is often painted as self-centred, blokey, and prone to moments of stupidity and shortsightedness. But our research into our core target market unearthed some more noble traits than the usual cliches suggest. We discovered that these men want to make a difference. They want to make their mark on the world and are more invested in their environment than we give them credit for. Sure, they’re still often blokey. Still prone to moments of stupidity but with underlying character traits that gave us a great way in. The simple call to action across all of the Brewtroleum campaign–drink DB Export and save the entire world – created a fun permissibility around beer drinking. It allowed NZ men, who had been turning away from the beer category, to feel good about themselves for choosing us.