STRATEGY DISSECTION: Newcastle Brown Ale

I’m going to show you how to use the Strategy On A Page model with the infamous Newcastle Brown Ale Superbowl campaign ‘If We Made It’.?

The Strategy On A Page is a ‘Nesting Strategy’ – where it stacks all the key components that a strategy statement must contain and then when you unpack it, it tells the full story of the strategy.

Before we kick-off, everyone might be aware of the ‘If We Made It’ campaign but what really made it a success was its positioning campaign ‘No Bollocks’ which launched a year before the big game.?

No Bollocks was Newcastle Brown Ales locker room strategy before taking to the field with ‘If We Made It’. The brand outplayed mainstream beers by building a fan base, brand equity and momentum that they could take with them to the big game.?

Let’s have a look at some examples to give context ahead of ‘If We Made It’ big game strategy.

You can see from the examples that Newcastle Brown Ale secretly amassed an underdog fan base that was familiar with this integrated challenger strategy that was calling out the mainstream brands well before the big game.

Now, I’d normally show the spot but we’re going to look at the Case Study of ‘If We Made It’ instead as the creative approach was to follow the traditional? ‘overhyped’ pre-game Superbowl advertising.

Let’s unpack the ‘If We Made It’ onto a Strategy On A Page:

Business problem?

Newcastle Brown Ale is a no-nonsense, straightforward, honest beer in a category that was already shrinking and losing share in favour of the more humble craft beer brewers.?

The problem for Newcastle Brown Ale is that worldwide volumes had declined by 3%, with like-for-like revenues down 1%.

Consumer problem

The problem for customers is that they were jaded, tired of being misled by mainstream beers who were selling them lofty aspirational lifestyles that weren’t reflective of real life.

Insight

With so much of the same bollocks put on display, it’s impossible to tell what isn’t

Solution

Taking a no bollocks approach by parodying all the major players monopolising the biggest sporting event?

Consumer goal

So that consumers could call time on all the bollocks?

Business goal

And see Newcastle Brown Ale become a trustworthy brand for them

Thanks to Strategy Finishing School member Matthew Osborne for helping to deconstruct this strategy with me.?

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