Scottish and Newcastle

The challenge

Scottish & Newcastle is one of Europe's largest brewers with leading brands such as Fosters, Kronenbourg and Sagres.

As the alcoholic drinks market expands with more new introductions and innovations, S&N's challenge is to understand how to keep regular beer drinkers committed to their choice.

The project

After auditing S&N's extensive research and information resource on beer drinkers' motivations and behaviour, we held a workshop with key international stakeholders at S&N, debating hypotheses on the current need states hierarchy for beer drinkers, and the implications for the category.

This evolved into the focus of a research brief among regular beer drinkers in France, Portugal and the UK, where we worked collaboratively with each local office to ensure local cultural and marketing issues were incorporated.

There followed an extensive period of qualitative exploration featuring extended micro-culture groups and ethnographic observations. We then held a workshop among the international qualitative researchers to define a truly international model of emotional and functional drivers for regular beer drinkers across all types of beer occasions in all cultures.

Outcomes

The primary outcome was the recognition of the powerful social and cultural role that beer plays in men's lives, and of the huge potential value that continues to be gained from adapting and evolving the product as men's lives change.

The marketing output included:

• A beer drinkers' needs states model which acts as a marketing tool
• The identification of fresh and enhanced brand positioning opportunities
• Direction for R&D opportunities to add value to the beer drinking experience and serving occasion.

Work continues at S&N to build on these initiatives.