Dive Brief:
- MillerCoors' Blue Moon brand is rolling out a new marketing campaign and tagline, "Something's Brewing." This is in tandem with the beer's new package design, which features a beer garnished with an orange slice.
- The brand's new message is a shift from its previous "Artfully Crafted" tagline and focuses instead on creativity, or the process of creating rather than the final product.
- Oranges still play a prominent role in the brand's marketing, but they're now used "as a source of inspiration versus more of an ingredient story," Ashley Selman, MillerCoors' vice president of marketing for emerging and economy brands and a former senior marketing director at the company's craft and import beer division, told Ad Age.
Dive Insight:
Blue Moon is taking a different approach from one of its major competitors, Shock Top, a craft-positioned brand owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Shock Top's latest campaign debuted during the Super Bowl and features humorous banter between an actor and the brand's Wedgehead orange mascot.
Blue Moon's new campaign also differs from the product and ingredient-centric campaigns other companies are adopting. Coca-Cola left behind its own high-minded campaign in lieu of marketing that focuses on trademark Coke products' ingredients and features and the experiences that consumers have with the brand. Hershey has also recently launched an experiential masterbrand campaign.
With this new campaign, Blue Moon is embracing a more high-minded attitude, which appeals to consumers who appreciate artistry and the creative process. This demonstrates that loftier marketing messages still have a place in the food and beverage industry.
The key for product-centric campaigns is to highlight how consumers enjoy the product, how the product is made, and/or the product's ingredients, including where they came from. The orange is still an iconic ingredient featured in Blue Moon's new campaign. But the message is not so much about the orange as a component of the product, but instead how it was the creative inspiration behind this beer brand.