Live the brand
By Jeff White: Nov 26, 2010
PR and marketing hacks spout those three words all the time. Live the brand. Makes good sense, when you think about it. Living the essence of how you want consumers to feel about your product is pretty important. Everyone knows that Apple espouses great design. Their brand is simplicity, elegance and desirability. Most every Apple user has at least some of these reasons for choosing to use those products.
The same holds true for beer. This week, ABInBev, the company that owns Labatts and brews one of Halifax’s original beers, Alexander Keith’s, decided to take up to 47 jobs, and move that production from Halifax to what used to be ‘export’ markets of Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. I think it’s great that a ‘local’ product is catching on elsewhere (well, as local as the largest beer company in the world can be, anyway). I get the business rationale behind the decision. Beer is heavy and expensive to transport, so why not brew it near the consumers who want the product? Plus, according to Labatt spokespeople, production of Keith’s intended for our market would continue to be brewed here. Win-win, right? Not really.
I stirred up some controversy when I posted to Twitter that people should tell Keith’s just how pissed they were by posting on their Facebook wall. The Chronicle Herald even picked it up, retweeted the post and scads of people got angry with Keith’s. I don’t take credit for the massive waves of people who went there and told the company just how they felt and that they planned to boycott the brand–Labatts can take all the credit for that.
I don’t drink Keith’s, unless I’m handed one at a party, or there are absolutely no other options. To me, it’s just not a very good beer and tastes like every other mass-market brew. If I’m the one buying, I always buy local microbrews from Propeller, Garrison, Granite Brewery and Pump House in Moncton. If I’m feeling like having something ‘imported’, I’ll buy micros from Mill Street in Toronto, or McAuslan from Quebec. Every single one of these companies is small, local and dedicated to ultra high-quality product. It doesn’t cost much more, and the taste choices are infinitely more varied and interesting than anything brewed by the giant conglomerates.
But that’s not even really why I got a little worked up about Keith’s moving production to the centres where the market has expanded. Ever since I can remember, Keith’s has been marketed as a Halifax brew. Those who like it, like it a lot, I guess. They’ve used the (tired) imagery of 18th century pubs with busty lasses serving cold mugs of Keith’s to tired and horny sailors. This is the image they’ve used to promote the product, even when the recipe and ownership have long since changed to some generic offshore figurehead. They’ve touted their Nova Scotia roots as one of the major reasons to consume the product. Living the Keith’s brand means to Hold True (their current tagline) to their history of being a Halifax port city pub beer. Holding True would mean making the hard choice to continue to keep people employed here even while expanding to new markets. This decision is so off-brand for the marque and that’s why people are upset. It’s what happens when accountants and lawyers make strategic decisions, rather than letting people with actual vision run a brand.
I highly doubt most people will actually boycott the brand despite the brouhaha over this move. Humans are herd creatures and there are enough people who don’t care where the beer is brewed, so they’ll just lapse into old habits when they see their friends continuing to drink Keith’s.
Wouldn’t it be great though, if most of the people who claimed to be mad about this actually took the steps to buy beer based on the principles that pissed them off in the first place? What if all of those hundreds of consumers started buying actual local, real beer instead of the slop produced by the big breweries? Lots of people on the Facebook page claimed to be switching to Budweiser or something similar. Since Bud is also brewed by the same company, how is this making a statement at all?
If you really care about the products you consume, you should be making every effort to understand the companies behind the brands you enjoy.
Drink local, my friends.
November 26, 2010
6:30 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeff White and Steve Keeling, Patti Ellis. Patti Ellis said: Great post! RT @brightwhite: Live the brand: Why moving Keith's beer production elsewhere matters. http://bit.ly/keithsbeer [...]
November 26, 2010
7:52 am
An excellent, excellent piece of commentary, Jeff. These words move well beyond marketing and PR, too – they speak also to general news, and also to what it means to declare oneself by a product’s marque..
[My local preferences, btw, are Garrison's Amber in the summer and the Granite stout in the winter.]
November 26, 2010
8:40 am
Thanks Michael. All we have when it comes to the products we buy are the stories we tell ourselves about those products.
November 26, 2010
9:23 am
Great commentary Jeff
November 26, 2010
9:20 am
Well said! I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the NSLC and purchased a Keith’s product in my life but I’m definitely not going to start now. It’s great from a business standpoint that they’re growing and expanding in other markets but this move takes away pretty much all their credibility – what is the difference between Keith’s and other (in my opinion) swill like Labatt Blue now? Their one charm and one unique point was that they were a Nova Scotia brewery with lots of heritage. Now that that’s gone I don’t see what they have going for them!
November 26, 2010
10:57 am
Very well said, Jeff. I agree supporting local businesses should be more of a priority to consumers. Something to note: There is still a true Canadian brewery operating as a family-run business in the Maritimes. Moosehead Breweries is the oldest independent brewery in Canada and hopefully displeased Keith’s drinkers will consider us at their next NSLC visit.
November 26, 2010
11:11 am
Great point, I appreciate the comment.
I know full well that most people who like beer enjoy more mass-market beers than I do. I think Moosehead has done a good job with their marketing and has stayed truer to its roots than Keith’s. When I lived in New Brunswick in the nineties, I drank a fair amount of Moosehead Pale Ale and enjoyed it greatly.
November 26, 2010
12:36 pm
Something similar but more drastic going on in the valley, MAple Leaf Foods is closing the Larsens plant in Berwick, with a loss of 200+ jobs. Heard an ad on the radio the other day assuring consumers that the larsens brand is here to stay. Thanks Maple Leaf Foods, the name is good enough to keep so you can still make money off of us here, just not keep jobs here in the valley.
I know I will be looking for products produced by other companies when I buy groceries from now on.
November 26, 2010
1:39 pm
Man, my dad used to work in the summer at that plant, and knew lots of people there when he was growing up in Berwick.
These big companies just don’t get how to operate at this level. It’s appalling.
November 26, 2010
1:23 pm
Hey Jeff. Good points. My issue with all of this is that Labatt’s is doing a very bad job of managing the ‘PR’ and communications. They messed up putting the message out first off and are doing an even worse job of managing the comments and ‘buzz’ online.
Saying that, it doesn’t help that Bell Aliant, Maple Leaf and a local mill also laid off stay around the same time.
I 100% agree that people should look local. There are some excellent beers to try and enjoy. Propeller (www.drinkpropeller.ca) is all about quality and taste, and has a great selection of beer. They also support the local economy and are recognized on the world stage.
Sean
November 26, 2010
3:15 pm
Agreed with Sean here. Regardless what you think of their business decision, the response thus far is a social media case study in what not to do.
Of course, the response of the public thus far is pretty telling that largely, consumers don’t know enough about the products they consume. Like the fact that part of the reason they’re having to move Keith’s to Ontario and elsewhere is because they need to make more Bud and Bud Light in Halifax for the Maritimes, and the fact that Keith’s hasn’t been locally ‘owned’ for nearly 40 years.
But all in all, this is a good summary of why the “business decision” will have a definite downside from a branding perspective. I suspect they’re banking that it will hurt them here more than it will anywhere else – especially given the comment on the FB page from one of the employees who said Keith’s is actually struggling in the Maritimes.
Prediction as they try to grow sales outside the Maritimes – it won’t be long before they stop calling it IPA, at least outside Canada.