Stella Artois Rebrand

Here’s the problem: you’re the most successful beer brand in the UK, your marketing strategy has been hailed as brilliant and your ads seen as works of art. Your strapline is ‘reassuringly expensive’, you sponsor the Queens Club tennis tournament and you’re synonomous with good films. However, your lager is also colloquially known as ‘wife beater’ and supermarkets discount your product heavily to get footfall. So what do you do?

The lager formally known as Stella Artois has decided to rebrand. To shake off its downmarket, laddish and agressive reputation, Britain’s most popular premium lager has created a portfolio of beers under the Artois name to provide some much needed cache. In addition to Stella, it is marketing Peeterman, a wheat beer of 4 per cent strength, and Bock, a 6 per cent lager.

The Guardian reports:

“With a market share of more than a third, Stella remains the biggest player within the UK’s premium lager sector. But recent sales patterns are not encouraging. According to figures released in March, sales volume fell by over 10 per cent in the previous year. The company’s announcement in April that it would be raising the price of a pint by a further 12p provoked a reaction among parts of the tabloid press that must have led it to wonder whether ‘reassuringly expensive’ might soon become ‘prohibitively expensive’.

“Naresh Ramchandani, an advertising consultant, underlines the problem. ‘I think what they were doing with their advertising is now completely at odds with how Stella is perceived, which is as a bit chavvy. They create something very nice, display it and say now go out and buy our product. You can’t kid people like that if that’s not what tallies with their perception of your brand.’