Carlton & United Breweries: The Rise of Mercury Hard Cider

This case study describes how Mercury Hard Cider, an Australian cider brand, utilised packaging to reinvigorate sales in the Australian market.

Carlton & United Breweries: The Rise of Mercury Hard Cider

Agency: Denomination

Executive summary

Mercury Cider is Australia's oldest cider brand founded in 1911. Despite a loyal customer base, Mercury was experiencing a steady decline exacerbated by a lack of awareness amongst younger consumers in the booming cider category. In 2014 the client, CUB, developed a number of strategic directions to explore. This involved not only looking at the packaging but also at the actual liquid. Out of this came an innovative positioning for a "Hard" Cider: a higher alcohol offering that would sit alongside the parent brand.

The...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands