Your t-shirt might be made in China, your car from Germany, and your IKEA desk from Sweden (or China), but there’s one part of your life we know you know that it’s good when it comes from locals–when you drink a beer.
Local craft beer is a hot topic right now, no matter where you live. And everyone who reads EATERAZ knows that we believe you should only support local when local is actually better. Thankfully for us Arizonans, our locally brewed brews usually are. But the brands are often small, and can use all the marketing help they can get. So, the folks who distribute a fair amount of the top local beers have devised a way to tap the “drink local” buzz while moving kegs and cases.
Alliance Beverage Distributing Company recently launched the ‘Made in Arizona’ campaign. Devised by Troy Slicker, ABDC’s Beer Business Manager, and his team, they felt the best way to drive local beer sales is to tell a collective story about where these beers are brewed. “The program markets all of ABDC’s local beers simultaneously, tapping into a sense of hometown pride,” says Slicker.
Represented in the program are Four Peaks from Tempe, Phoenix Ale Co. from Phoenix, Nimbus Brewery from Tucson, Oak Creek Brewery from Sedona, and Lumberyard Brewery from Flagstaff. Basically, these beers appear on banners, signage, and promo ads together, as one group. Restaurants and bars can work with their ABDC sales rep to craft their twist on the ‘Made in Arizona’ program, so if a place only serves ales from each of these breweries, the marketing will communicate that. If it only carries three of the five breweries, the marketing will communicate that. And if a bar wants to run specials leading up to the Arizona Centennial in February, the marketing can communicate that.
In light of this Made in AZ success, Slicker’s group has recently launched a second campaign, grouping together ABDC’s Asian beers. Built around the word “Cheers!,” the program started with a new ABDC client, Chang beer, imported from Thailand. And since Arizona is one of the top Sapporo markets in the country, this campaign practically writes itself. It displays the word “cheers” in different Asian languages. “Similar to how the word ‘prost’ became a popular marketing jingle for German beers, words like ‘kanpai’ and ‘gān bēi’ are used in this campaign,” says Slicker. “It’s a little more educational and interactive than the ‘Made in Arizona’ program, but it works.”
Other beers in the Asian push include Yanjing from Thailand, Singha from Thailand, Export 33 from Vietnam, San Miguel from The Philippines, Taj Mahal from India, Himalayan Blue and Kingfisher from India, and of course Sapporo from Japan and Chang. However, similar to the Arizona campaign, point-of-sale merchandising and advertising can be customized.
So if you’re not drinking local, drink Chinese. It’s kind of like buying a desk from IKEA that’s made in Switzerland, but actually made in China.
Source: www.eateraz.com
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