How a humorous take on 'mateship' set beer brand Speight's apart from the category

Are you looking to enter the Sustained Growth category of the WARC Awards for Effectiveness? Here's something to inspire you! Read on to find out more about 2021 Bronze winner, New Zealand beer brand Speight's.

Speight's: The Dance

The challenge: Mainstream New Zealand beer Speight's needed to strengthen its brand and connect with younger drinkers to defend sales and share in a shrinking market.

The insight: Kiwi mateship, historically emotionally reticent and tough, was becoming more emotionally expressive and vulnerable; less focused on practical support and more on emotional commitment. Speight's found that the new currency of being a good mate was emotional sacrifice – putting one's needs and feelings second to a mate's happiness.

The execution: Speight's ran a TV, digital, social and OOH campaign following the sacrificial story of two workmates teaching each other to dance. An entourage of mates stay after work to offer critique. Mastering dancing becomes their group project, and they approach it with the same attitude as Thursday night training for the football team. The reveal is when the hero, Simon, surprises his wife with a perfect dance routine on their wedding day, while his mates look on with pride.

The results: The 2018-2020 campaign drove overall 14.9% revenue growth, earning around $22m in incremental revenue. It achieved category-beating volume growth of 3.3% versus 3.0% in 2018, 5.3% versus 2.8% in 2019 and 13.9% in 2020; its ale and low-carb beers also outperformed their categories.

Dive deeper

In partnership with On Strategy Showcase's Fergus O'Carroll, WARC has interviewed Lucinda Sherborne, Executive Planning Director at DDB New Zealand and Rachel Ellerm, National Marketing Director at Lion to uncover behind-the-scenes insights on the work.

Where to listen