summer drinks Fly me to the Moon
BEER giant Molson Coors is going Stateside for its summer sales assault. The Carling owner has confirmed it will be focusing on building distribution of Blue Moon, the American craft beer, in the coming weeks and months. It reckons the taste profile of the beer makes it ideal for summer quaffing, especially when it’s garnished with a slice of orange.
Blue Moon should be on song this summer when it is marketed by beer giant Molson Coors.
Craft beers – traditional beer styles that are locally made – represent a rapidly growing market in the US. According to Alasdair Hamilton of Molson Coors, Blue Moon also offers something new and different for drinkers.
Billed as the ‘No 1 craft beer in the
US’, Blue Moon was first launched in 1995 and is a Belgian-style ‘witbier’ brewed in Golden, Colorado. A creamy beer, it is spiced with
Valencia orange peel and coriander. Sales chief Hamilton said: “The orange serve theatre creates interest and provides a point of difference and we will be supporting bars with training and POS to maximise on the opportunity Blue Moon provides to offer something new and different to drinkers.”
Originally called Bellyslide Belgian White, Blue Moon was created by a brewer at Coors Field’s Sandlot Brewery (the onsite brewery owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company).
Softies aim to soar in summer
HE country’s biggest soft drinks suppliers have unveiled their strategies for maximising sales this summer.
Soft drinks manufacturers gear up for a thirst-quenching season in the sun T
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), the firm which supplies Coke, Schweppes and Appletiser to the trade, is again looking to its partnership with spirits firm Diageo to drive revenue over its key trading period. Now in its second year, the alliance sees the firms jointly invest in training for the on-trade to help operators deliver classic mixed drinks such as Gordon’s gin and Schweppes tonic and Smirnoff vodka and Coca-Cola to a consistently high standard. According to Alan Halliday, regional
director of Coca-Cola Enterprises Scotland, CCE and Diageo Great Britain are continuing to drive their initiative to help the on-trade with a £2.5m investment from April to run across the summer. ‘Together for a Better Summer’ is being activated in over 13,000 on-trade outlets nationwide, a 30% increase on last year. In-outlet POS will be branded, ‘Always Better Together’.
Halliday said: “37% of drinkers claim they would order spirit and mixer drinks if they were served better, presenting a strong opportunity for licencees.” Meanwhile, CCE rival AG Barr has unveiled a major plank of its summer strategy with its latest campaign. The £3m integrated campaign began earlier this month and will last for 12 weeks, featuring on TV as well as bus
32 - SLTN - April 28, 2011
AG Barr, like other major soft drinks manufacturers, is hoping to make hay while the sun shines this summer and boost sales with campaigns devoted to re-enforcing the joys of thirst-quenching drinks.
sides, train station screens and the internet.
The jewel in the crown is a new 60 second commercial which offers a mix of live action and animation as it follows a cut-out couple as they come to life and try to outwit each other to get their hands on Irn-Bru via a voyage around Scotland. Adrian Troy, head of marketing at AG
Barr, said: “Summer is a key trading period for soft drinks in Scotland where total soft drinks sales typically see an 11% uplift with Irn-Bru generating £1.5m per week in sales. Irn-Bru is
valued at £71m in Scotland alone and continues to grow year on year.” Traditional soft drinks maker Fentimans, which has just launched John Hollows, an alcoholic ginger beer, usually experiences buoyant sales in the summer months, accounting for an average of 70% of sales. A spokeswoman said: “We would advise licensees to make the most of the general feeling of wellbeing that is the result of the promise of summer.” Fentimans will be hitting their message home at CAMRA shows and other key events through the summer.
The full Kopparberg suite, from COS Brands. Make
space for cider
OPERATORS looking to make the most of summer cider sales should cater for the variety of taste profiles now on the market.
Davin Nugent, the boss of Kopparberg owner COS Brands, told SLTN that cider should not be viewed any differently from other drinks categories when it comes to product stocking decisions.
“A lot of bars at this stage have seen the huge potential of cider and are beginning to give it more shelf space,” Davin said. “Where there tends not to be the same pull through is where people have a pear cider and a fruit cider and see it as a box ticked. “It’s more than that. Just like beer, you don’t just have one beer type on your shelf, you’ve got loads. There’s a wide variety of tastes there and I think the same is true for cider. “Kopparberg is enjoyed by a wide variety of drinkers, not just cider drinkers. We would take in more drinkers from outside of cider than we would from current cider. “It’s important for us to draw in world beer drinkers, white wine drinkers, spirits drinkers as well as cider drinkers. “There has to be a realisation on the bar’s part that, while they have a dry tasting apple cider and a dry tasting pear cider, they should also have a semi-sweet cider, which is what we would be, to humour the choice consumers are looking for. “Bars that provide choice are taking a positive step to really take sales to their highest level.” Davin said Kopparberg, whose range comprises pear, mixed fruit, strawberry and lime and elderflower and lime, was currently maintaining the same level of progress this year which saw it grow by 50% in 2011. He said summer remains a key period for the brand, but insisted the category now enjoyed more perennial appeal. “There’s no doubt that summer is still the peak, but it’s not the huge peak it once was,” he said.
“In 2006, 2007 you could have been looking at doing 50% of your volume over the summer, but for us that’s not the case any more.”
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