Marketing for breweries: learn how to delight customers and sell more!
Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2025 6:35 am
Beer is part of the culture and custom of many people. It is common to find people who enjoy drinking one or several types of beer. But what does this have to do with marketing? We'll get to that later.
The average beer consumption per consumer in Mexico is canada mobile number database around 65 liters per year, according to data from Forbes , eight liters more than were consumed five years ago.
For this reason, I will talk to you about marketing for breweries, covering ways to promote the brand and its products. Will you join me?
Change in the marketing scenario for breweries
It is quite clear that companies today care much more about their consumers. This is not exclusive to the beer sector, on the contrary: it is a trend in all sectors.
We learned from the buying journey that the consumer's first contact with the brand is very important and that, many times, if the experience provided generates enough value for them, it will be a great opportunity to engage them and make the buyer become a great advocate for the brand — promoting, defending, interacting and recommending to new people.
What is abundant in the marketing landscape for breweries are cases of companies that changed the way they relate to their public by investing in branding, providing new experiences and even rebranding, altering the perception of how their company is seen in the market.
For this reason, below I will mention examples of companies that rely on communication as a strong sales strategy:
Skol
The Brazilian brand is known for being very traditional in the market and also one of the sales leaders in the segment in the country, but to stay on top it is necessary to invest in promotion.
For years, the company has invested heavily in the media and has always spoken to a male target audience , resulting in ultra-sexualized campaigns, often featuring women in bikinis on beaches, at swimming pools and at parties.
There were cases where the use of abusive advertising by Skol was noted, which has always invested heavily in the carnival to promote its brand and products. However, in 2015 they went overboard:
Marketing for breweries - Skol Brasil campaign "I forgot the no"
Following an avalanche of criticism, Skol has pledged to change its positioning and work on rebranding the brand in the market.
To do so, it decided to make room for a new discourse with the aim of disassociating itself from the negative image that was generated by the campaign and also conquering, charming and engaging new audiences through a modern dialogue – something that requires the attention of many brands today.
The solution was to completely rethink its communication, including the dissemination of advertisements, graphic materials, slogans and the brand concept — perhaps its most significant change — to reach a new audience.
The brand was concerned about one of the trends of 2018, which is the empowerment of minorities, and bet on totally innovative concepts of equality and respect, demonstrating that it is attentive to the changes that are occurring in the profile of consumers.
And through this change, it transformed some points in its visual identity, language and online and offline communication, mainly with new products such as its long neck.
Heineken
It is the third largest beer producer in the world, and has its brand present in more than 192 countries, so brand communication and positioning are of great importance to the Dutch producer.
As a company focused on the alcohol industry, it encounters barriers and regulations in the way it advertises specifically for that segment.
We often see the brand associated with football competitions, mainly the UEFA Champions League, the biggest international football competition, as well as being linked to concerts and music festivals.
But, knowing that their audience is not only in front of the TV watching the games or entertaining themselves with music, they decided to invest in the user experience and interaction with the brand.
Their big move is the mix of investments in digital and traditional media, always diversifying between content formats.
One of the ways to indirectly promote the brand was the investment in branded content , with the creation of The Cities Project.
The central idea is to occupy cities — once its direct competitor, Corona, is the leader in sales on beaches — and to give people back the credibility of the brand in the form of social projects, such as revitalization and occupation of unused spaces.
This was a smart initiative, where there was no need to directly insert or promote Heineken beers, and which has reached both consumers and non-consumers.
Below, we can see an example of the +POOL project, which is being developed in New York with the aim of creating a pool with filtered water in the East River.
Heineken | The Cities Project: +POOL
Alternatives for marketing strategies
When we talk about marketing, we have a range of options for promoting the company or product. For this reason, I am going to demonstrate some of the most important ones for a beer brand:
Working on branding
Branding means managing your brand. And when we talk about brand, we mean everything it represents and what it refers to. In this case: the brewery.
The trademark is characterized by referring to a set as a whole, and not to separate elements.
An example is Cervecería Colorado, which, in addition to selling beer and various accessories, is concerned with emphasizing that its beers are produced with typical Brazilian ingredients and drive the economy of Ribeirão Preto, the city where the brewery was created.
Marketing for Breweries - Colorado Brewery in Brazil
It is necessary to be concerned with the brand image as a whole in order to correctly channel your branding actions. To do so, think about the following questions:
What image does your brewery want to convey?
Is there any difference in your beers?
What does your brand care about?
Who will you communicate with?
How do you want your audience to remember your brewery?
These are essential questions that can help define the brand's guidelines and values, since branding is not a short-term marketing action, but rather a long-term positioning strategy that needs to be reinforced over time.
Investing in visual identity
Now that we have talked about branding and the importance of brand value, it is time to work on visual identity. When it comes to beer, it can be said that this is one of the secrets of any company.
Visual identity is a set of elements that visually represent your brand or product. Unlike brand equity, it is something that can be considered tangible and changing.
It is very important that the visual identity dialogues with the brand concepts so that coherence is generated in its content, because it is the materialization of everything that has been previously defined.
As part of the job, it is common to see breweries that maintain a manual for their brand, showing how it should be applied correctly.
In beer, most of the visual identity work is done with labels, websites or social media, so I will show the importance of worrying about identity and real examples:
Creating the label
How many times has a label made you choose a certain beer in a moment of indecision?
It certainly has the power to influence buyers and you have to think about standing out on the shelves of breweries or supermarkets.
But why?
The labeled bottle is the result of weeks or months of effort in producing your craft beer, which is why it is necessary to bring all the essence of the beer and the brand into it. But remember that the label is not only the face of your beer, but also a marketing strategy to increase sales.
That is why it is important to create appeal through the elements that compose it, such as colors, typography and information, not forgetting the law that refers to the standardization of beer labels.
Tag examples:
marketing for breweries - creative beer labels
Social networks
Fundamental to any digital marketing strategy, social media is the unanimous choice when it comes to a brand's digital presence.
If you want your beer or brewery to have online visibility, social media is the first step, and to do so you need to define what to use.
If you are just starting out, Facebook and Instagram are recommended for three reasons:
They are easy to use;
They enable different content formats;
These are two of the most used social networks in the world.
If your strategy is already underway and the intention is to diversify content channels, YouTube and instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Messenger are a good step.
But remember that digital marketing is a set of strategies, so you should keep an eye on other channels — such as blogs — and content formats that can be shared.
Content production
A strategy that is being adopted by large companies and beer sites is the production of content.
There are different types of content , such as: textual, visual, auditory and audiovisual.
In today's world, it is common for consumers to be well informed about the product they are consuming before making a purchase. After all, we live in a world surrounded by information. So, why not educate yourself and buy correctly?
And brands need to be concerned with this if they want to maintain their visibility on the web. This strategy is called content marketing .
Content marketing is a strategy to generate engagement and make your relationship with your audience closer through relevant content that attracts their attention, generates value, increases brand perception and boosts your sales.
But how to combine content marketing with a brewery? Surely that question has crossed your mind and I am here to answer it.
cta kit content production
Defining a person
First you need to define your persona , which is the semi-fictional representation of the person you want to reach with your strategy. In the case of breweries, I will mention three personas here: Jorge, Enrique and María.
Jorge, a consumer. He is a marketing professional and is already used to drinking beers that are common in the national scene. But now he decided to try the craft beers and is looking to better understand the subject - which he is still far from mastering;
Enrique, a home brewer. He always loved beer and his hobby was trying different labels. Recently he decided, with a group of friends, to learn how to make his own beer. The ultimate goal is to be able to taste it at special moments;
Maria is a professional brewer. She knows a lot about beer and already produces on a considerable scale. Also, like all brewers, she likes to discover new flavours. That is why she is always looking for products with inputs and ingredients that are harder to find on the market.
They are different people with different goals and problems. That is why it is necessary to create content and even products that meet their needs at the exact moment they request them.
Choose the type of content
I mentioned earlier that there are different types of content, but which ones would be the most appropriate?
First, always think about yourself and ask yourself the following:
What content would you like to consume?
Is there a specific format?
What social networks is she on?
What time of day is available to consume content?
With the answers to these questions, it will be much easier to know where to start. If the answer you found is to start by producing textual content, opt for evergreen texts , ephemeral content (such as news), reviews or lists.
If the idea is to have audiovisual content, invest in interviews, webinars, reviews, top 10 and institutional content talking about the brewery or showing the " backstage " with your production routine or some other internal process.
Images are great for circulating on the Internet and the strategies that are in vogue today are infographics, memes, gifs or explanatory images.
Finally, we have audio, which is used for its ease of consumption. For this type of content, we have narration and podcasts, which are highly recommended for both light and technical topics.
With these tips, your brewery marketing strategy will be one step ahead and you will have the great reward of brand awareness. Always remember to create a strategy that is consistent with what you want to communicate to your audience.
The average beer consumption per consumer in Mexico is canada mobile number database around 65 liters per year, according to data from Forbes , eight liters more than were consumed five years ago.
For this reason, I will talk to you about marketing for breweries, covering ways to promote the brand and its products. Will you join me?
Change in the marketing scenario for breweries
It is quite clear that companies today care much more about their consumers. This is not exclusive to the beer sector, on the contrary: it is a trend in all sectors.
We learned from the buying journey that the consumer's first contact with the brand is very important and that, many times, if the experience provided generates enough value for them, it will be a great opportunity to engage them and make the buyer become a great advocate for the brand — promoting, defending, interacting and recommending to new people.
What is abundant in the marketing landscape for breweries are cases of companies that changed the way they relate to their public by investing in branding, providing new experiences and even rebranding, altering the perception of how their company is seen in the market.
For this reason, below I will mention examples of companies that rely on communication as a strong sales strategy:
Skol
The Brazilian brand is known for being very traditional in the market and also one of the sales leaders in the segment in the country, but to stay on top it is necessary to invest in promotion.
For years, the company has invested heavily in the media and has always spoken to a male target audience , resulting in ultra-sexualized campaigns, often featuring women in bikinis on beaches, at swimming pools and at parties.
There were cases where the use of abusive advertising by Skol was noted, which has always invested heavily in the carnival to promote its brand and products. However, in 2015 they went overboard:
Marketing for breweries - Skol Brasil campaign "I forgot the no"
Following an avalanche of criticism, Skol has pledged to change its positioning and work on rebranding the brand in the market.
To do so, it decided to make room for a new discourse with the aim of disassociating itself from the negative image that was generated by the campaign and also conquering, charming and engaging new audiences through a modern dialogue – something that requires the attention of many brands today.
The solution was to completely rethink its communication, including the dissemination of advertisements, graphic materials, slogans and the brand concept — perhaps its most significant change — to reach a new audience.
The brand was concerned about one of the trends of 2018, which is the empowerment of minorities, and bet on totally innovative concepts of equality and respect, demonstrating that it is attentive to the changes that are occurring in the profile of consumers.
And through this change, it transformed some points in its visual identity, language and online and offline communication, mainly with new products such as its long neck.
Heineken
It is the third largest beer producer in the world, and has its brand present in more than 192 countries, so brand communication and positioning are of great importance to the Dutch producer.
As a company focused on the alcohol industry, it encounters barriers and regulations in the way it advertises specifically for that segment.
We often see the brand associated with football competitions, mainly the UEFA Champions League, the biggest international football competition, as well as being linked to concerts and music festivals.
But, knowing that their audience is not only in front of the TV watching the games or entertaining themselves with music, they decided to invest in the user experience and interaction with the brand.
Their big move is the mix of investments in digital and traditional media, always diversifying between content formats.
One of the ways to indirectly promote the brand was the investment in branded content , with the creation of The Cities Project.
The central idea is to occupy cities — once its direct competitor, Corona, is the leader in sales on beaches — and to give people back the credibility of the brand in the form of social projects, such as revitalization and occupation of unused spaces.
This was a smart initiative, where there was no need to directly insert or promote Heineken beers, and which has reached both consumers and non-consumers.
Below, we can see an example of the +POOL project, which is being developed in New York with the aim of creating a pool with filtered water in the East River.
Heineken | The Cities Project: +POOL
Alternatives for marketing strategies
When we talk about marketing, we have a range of options for promoting the company or product. For this reason, I am going to demonstrate some of the most important ones for a beer brand:
Working on branding
Branding means managing your brand. And when we talk about brand, we mean everything it represents and what it refers to. In this case: the brewery.
The trademark is characterized by referring to a set as a whole, and not to separate elements.
An example is Cervecería Colorado, which, in addition to selling beer and various accessories, is concerned with emphasizing that its beers are produced with typical Brazilian ingredients and drive the economy of Ribeirão Preto, the city where the brewery was created.
Marketing for Breweries - Colorado Brewery in Brazil
It is necessary to be concerned with the brand image as a whole in order to correctly channel your branding actions. To do so, think about the following questions:
What image does your brewery want to convey?
Is there any difference in your beers?
What does your brand care about?
Who will you communicate with?
How do you want your audience to remember your brewery?
These are essential questions that can help define the brand's guidelines and values, since branding is not a short-term marketing action, but rather a long-term positioning strategy that needs to be reinforced over time.
Investing in visual identity
Now that we have talked about branding and the importance of brand value, it is time to work on visual identity. When it comes to beer, it can be said that this is one of the secrets of any company.
Visual identity is a set of elements that visually represent your brand or product. Unlike brand equity, it is something that can be considered tangible and changing.
It is very important that the visual identity dialogues with the brand concepts so that coherence is generated in its content, because it is the materialization of everything that has been previously defined.
As part of the job, it is common to see breweries that maintain a manual for their brand, showing how it should be applied correctly.
In beer, most of the visual identity work is done with labels, websites or social media, so I will show the importance of worrying about identity and real examples:
Creating the label
How many times has a label made you choose a certain beer in a moment of indecision?
It certainly has the power to influence buyers and you have to think about standing out on the shelves of breweries or supermarkets.
But why?
The labeled bottle is the result of weeks or months of effort in producing your craft beer, which is why it is necessary to bring all the essence of the beer and the brand into it. But remember that the label is not only the face of your beer, but also a marketing strategy to increase sales.
That is why it is important to create appeal through the elements that compose it, such as colors, typography and information, not forgetting the law that refers to the standardization of beer labels.
Tag examples:
marketing for breweries - creative beer labels
Social networks
Fundamental to any digital marketing strategy, social media is the unanimous choice when it comes to a brand's digital presence.
If you want your beer or brewery to have online visibility, social media is the first step, and to do so you need to define what to use.
If you are just starting out, Facebook and Instagram are recommended for three reasons:
They are easy to use;
They enable different content formats;
These are two of the most used social networks in the world.
If your strategy is already underway and the intention is to diversify content channels, YouTube and instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Messenger are a good step.
But remember that digital marketing is a set of strategies, so you should keep an eye on other channels — such as blogs — and content formats that can be shared.
Content production
A strategy that is being adopted by large companies and beer sites is the production of content.
There are different types of content , such as: textual, visual, auditory and audiovisual.
In today's world, it is common for consumers to be well informed about the product they are consuming before making a purchase. After all, we live in a world surrounded by information. So, why not educate yourself and buy correctly?
And brands need to be concerned with this if they want to maintain their visibility on the web. This strategy is called content marketing .
Content marketing is a strategy to generate engagement and make your relationship with your audience closer through relevant content that attracts their attention, generates value, increases brand perception and boosts your sales.
But how to combine content marketing with a brewery? Surely that question has crossed your mind and I am here to answer it.
cta kit content production
Defining a person
First you need to define your persona , which is the semi-fictional representation of the person you want to reach with your strategy. In the case of breweries, I will mention three personas here: Jorge, Enrique and María.
Jorge, a consumer. He is a marketing professional and is already used to drinking beers that are common in the national scene. But now he decided to try the craft beers and is looking to better understand the subject - which he is still far from mastering;
Enrique, a home brewer. He always loved beer and his hobby was trying different labels. Recently he decided, with a group of friends, to learn how to make his own beer. The ultimate goal is to be able to taste it at special moments;
Maria is a professional brewer. She knows a lot about beer and already produces on a considerable scale. Also, like all brewers, she likes to discover new flavours. That is why she is always looking for products with inputs and ingredients that are harder to find on the market.
They are different people with different goals and problems. That is why it is necessary to create content and even products that meet their needs at the exact moment they request them.
Choose the type of content
I mentioned earlier that there are different types of content, but which ones would be the most appropriate?
First, always think about yourself and ask yourself the following:
What content would you like to consume?
Is there a specific format?
What social networks is she on?
What time of day is available to consume content?
With the answers to these questions, it will be much easier to know where to start. If the answer you found is to start by producing textual content, opt for evergreen texts , ephemeral content (such as news), reviews or lists.
If the idea is to have audiovisual content, invest in interviews, webinars, reviews, top 10 and institutional content talking about the brewery or showing the " backstage " with your production routine or some other internal process.
Images are great for circulating on the Internet and the strategies that are in vogue today are infographics, memes, gifs or explanatory images.
Finally, we have audio, which is used for its ease of consumption. For this type of content, we have narration and podcasts, which are highly recommended for both light and technical topics.
With these tips, your brewery marketing strategy will be one step ahead and you will have the great reward of brand awareness. Always remember to create a strategy that is consistent with what you want to communicate to your audience.