How Birra got big

Last year, I spent a glorious couple of weeks in Italy with the family; boozing it up from Florence to Sorrento to Amalfi. 

It was here I discovered Birra Moretti and, despite not ever really being a big beer fan, you couldn't keep me off it.

brunch

That holiday was our first family holiday in a long time, and most-importantly it was the first where we were all adults - where we drank together, enjoyed sight seeing together, and generally had a laugh.

It's funny how your mind makes associations with experiences; now whenever I even see a Birra Moretti I am back in Capri, chilling with my family, and I feel very content. There are brands in life which you are loyal to because it's habit, whereas this is a brand which I now seek out because it makes me feel good.

Anyway, even though summer is dwindling here, I was so pleased to see a Moretti ad on the telly, called "Pull Together".

Click to watch

This gave me all the feels and took me back; the classic rustic village, the big family, and of course, the beer.

I was surprised to see an ad for it, considering I've never seen any UK advertising for it and it has very limited availability in pubs and shops. I had noticed it's the beer of choice in a couple of non-chain pizzerias, but Moretti seems to have got big, quickly. But how?

I've been doing a lot of research for work lately on how to grow alcohol start ups, and this is a great case study (geeking out on a bank hol)

Mark Noble, SBM for Moretti says that building a brand is like building a house, you need to get your foundations right. For them, that meant five years of small experiences with people who already love the brand and targeting the right occasions; such as collaborations with Italian vendors & little-known Pizza Pilgrims, growing in tandem with them. 

This year they finally went big with experiential at BST festival.

Noble believed a brand that starts small has more credibility than if you go big first time round. It's about patience and growing the brand with authenticity.

A couple of posts ago I laughed at brands that push the "authentic" message, but that's because most of them just tell us they are; talking the talk, without walking the walk.

“Scaling a brand is about a combination of things: it’s TV, it’s experiential, it’s digital and it’s cinema. This year for the first time we’ve brought the whole package together and TV is the final piece of the jigsaw in that package.”

Despite any nonsense you hear about "TV is dying"/"on it's way out"/"no one watches it anymore", this proves TV still has a huge role to play in delivering reach, as it has really catapulted Moretti into the mainstream this year, and it's now the fastest growing alcohol brand in the on-trade.

I'm pleased to see this brand doing so well & if it means that I can get easier access to the product on the regs, then I am fully behind any campaigns they wish to do.