Lager Advertising Survey

A couple of months ago during one of the 30+ hours I spend online each week , a little pop-up window asked me if I’d like to take part in a survey. I knew straight away it was advertising related and, working in the business of developing online advertising strategy, I’m always intrigued to take these surveys and gain a little insight into how other companies are tracking the branding effects of their digital marketing activities.

This one just so happened to be beer related therefore being of interest to more than just the day job. Specifically it was about lager brands, and asked my thoughts on five of the leading names and their recent advertising.

Lager Advertising Survey from RealAleReviews on Vimeo.

I always find these surveys miss a trick. I understand that they need to be quick, there’s an element of lowest common denominator about them, but I always wonder do they have to be quite so generic. Fundamentally they remove lots of important context. Given a bar with Carling, Kronenbourg 1664 or diet coke I’d drink the Kronenbourg dry before I touched either of the other two drinks on offer. On holiday I’ll happily buy and drink cold Kronenbourg, and I’ll choose it when there’s nothing but smoothflow or Carling on at the bar. At a recent wedding I was happy to sup on Stella when the alternative was a £7 glass of wine or a £5+ gin and lemonade.

I certainly don’t hate any of the brands so I added my own context to my answers. Given the choice of having all beers available in whatever situation I choose, would I ever pick one of the five brands included (Stella, Budweiser, Heineken, Kronenbourg, Carling and Fosters)? No. Because I personally don’t enjoy drinking them like I enjoy drinking other beers.

So if the advertisers of the lager brand who commissioned the survey (you should be able to tell who it is from the video!) want to know whether there ads have had an effect on me, they are asking the wrong questions. Because in context, I’m no more likely to buy one of these brands than I was before I saw the ads (which I saw on billboards, not online). You could argue that’s a failure, but I’m also probably not the average drinker, and the survey doesn’t take that into account.

Ask me if I thought the recent Stella ads are any good and I’ll say no, I think they’re pants. I barely understand what a hedge fund is despite living with a financial advisor for two years (and being geeky enough to try to understand what he does!). Much more impressive was Heineken’s recent PR exercise which has certainly increased their recall and positive recognition with me (even if personally I’m still not likely to buy it often). But if it worked on me, then I wonder how it might just help them become top of mind at the bar with a wider male audience who have it as one of their choices on a regular basis?