Brand Identity of New Belgium Brewery

New Belgium

This approach was effective for New Belgium. They wanted to create a strong sense of brand identity. Focus groups may have allowed for the broadest possible perspective, but New Belgium is a niche product, not seeking to be everything to everyone. Within their niche, New Belgium needs to be able to demonstrate authenticity, so it needed a brand identity that was stronger, and more specific to a sense of place. Furthermore, the campaign was rooted in the idea of lifestyle, in particular the tensions that define the target market for their beers. These tensions can be better defined by the people who live them --the spots are quite relatable to this niche market. There is a risk with focus groups and an effort to create the broadest possible appeal that the brand identity would become too generic, which would run counter to the company's effort to exploit a clearly-defined, and large, niche.

Unlike their larger contemporaries at Sam Adams, New Belgium has a strong sense of place and community, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. At this stage of the brand's growth, they are a small, niche product. The customers that they are seeking are early adopters in these new markets -- the people within the craft beer niche who buy into the marketing associated with New Belgium's identity and Colorado's as well. Aiming for the broadest possible input is not congruent with the brand's position in the market. New Belgium wants to appeal to a fairly specific target market, not the broad market. It is seeking the influencers who will define the brand's image. The spots are, outside of Colorado, a market entry strategy. The objective is to gain some early customers who are influential people, whose lives exhibit the brand's values. This is how the brand will communicate those values to others. A campaign aimed at broad appeal would not accomplish this, so the approach that New Belgium took was the right one for the situation they were in at the time.

2. A word like folly can help to define a campaign, so it is important to ensure that the wording of the spots is powerful. It makes sense that the company would agonize over this choice -- this choice is worth a lot of money. Get it wrong, and the entire campaign falls flat. It is good to have a multitude of different ideas in the room when making decisions because that is usually how a company makes the best decisions. The debate is therefore natural and healthy.

I feel that the use of the word is effective. It communicates the brand identity well.. Those who liked the word were correct. Folly is not a common word, and was open to reinterpretation. It does express the tensions that the spots were intended to express -- it is seen as some people to be folly to "eschew life as a professional in Denver," yet that is precisely the brand identity. The founders of New Belgium blew off promising careers to sell beer made in a basement out of the back of a car. That folly is precisely what defines not only the brewery, but also the target audience of early adopters who drink brands like New Belgium.

3. The company should continue to focus on the Colorado culture from which it arose. The thing about appealing to people in other parts of the country is that Colorado, and the way of life conveyed in these spots, has appeal across the country. Colorado, and towns like Fort Collins, are full of people who moved there from somewhere else precisely to live that sort of lifestyle. The carefree nature espoused in the spots is not just lifestyle marketing, but aspirational as well. The target market for the brewery consists of people who value this lifestyle, even if they cannot live it themselves. This market is not just people who live in Colorado, but anybody who values freedom, nature and the ability to control their own destiny.

4. New Belgium faces the same risk, but they are in a better position to maintain their brand identity. One of the things with Sam Adams is that it never had a sense of place. They were "Boston Lager," but brewed in Cincinnati. They aimed for a national presence very early, always positioning themselves against Budweiser et al. Sam Adams is publicly-traded, it has shareholders; it was always corporate, even if its beer was better.

New Belgium has always had a strong sense of place, was always rooted in Fort Collins. Moreover, New Belgium has never positioned itself against the major industrial brewers. Thus, even as the company grows larger, it has different positioning in the market, and always has. The company has been able to grow on the basis of being part of a culture that is highly fashionable, whereas Sam Adams even by the 90s had to leave this niche culture. That New Belgium is employee-owned and has a strong sustainability focus helps it even more with respect to its ability to maintain its identity.