Carlsberg is undergoing a complete overhaul in the UK – with a ‘rebrew’, more premium positioning and a greater appeal to women – as the beer brand concedes it had not been living up to its long running tagline.

“We want to change the way people think about Carlsberg,” Liam Newton, vice-president of marketing at Carlsberg UK, told Marketing Week.

“We’ve been saying we’re ‘probably the best beer in the world’ since 1973; the issue is recently we’ve not been living up to that.”

A new advertising campaign admits the brand lost its way with a focus on quantity and price but says the beer has been “completely rebrewed from head to hop” and now “probably” lives up to its promise.

Keeping the ‘probably’ tagline was essential, according to Lynsey Woods, Carlsberg UK’s director of marketing. “It is just so iconic, most brands would give their right arm to have it, why would you ever not want to utilise that?” she said.

Alongside the rebrew, a price increase aims to shift the brand into the “standard plus” segment, positioning it above rivals like Foster’s and Carling while continuing to emphasise its Danish roots.

And, crucially, the advertising will also embrace female drinkers, eschewing the laddish approach of some competitors.

“For a long time that standard part of the category hasn’t really spoken to women. But all my mates drink beer, I drink beer,” Woods noted. “The industry has forgotten that so we have tested everything with women and men equally and that will be a big change for us.

“When we see advertising that is male, laddy, bloke humour, it just doesn’t feel right anymore, it feels like it belongs to a different time,” she added.

Sourced from Marketing Week; additional content by WARC staff