Beer has increasingly lost its place as a natural meal drink. This is the story how we helped Spendrups reclaim the folköl and put it back on the table.
Beer has lost more and more of its position as a natural meal drink for any occasion. But those who enjoy beer certainly wants to drink beer more often in combination with food – without feeling the guilt of consuming alcohol on Tuesday night or at one’s lunch break. This is the story how we helped Spendrups “reclaim the folköl” and bring beer back to the table.
Scouting beer trends
In a first instance we scouted new beer trends across the world and then dived deep into the “folk beer” category by applying an ethnographic consumer research approach. The aim was to understand how beer drinkers in Sweden related to the category, how folk beer was used in everyday life and what unmet needs existed on the market related to folk beer.
With strong insights about the folk beer category in place we collaborated with a dedicated team at Spendrups to create new folk beer concepts that catered to some of the most promising consumption context in the category. These concepts were then developed and iterated to identify the two strategically most interesting value propositions for Spendrup’s new beer.
We had high ambitions of a full-fledged beer with good taste and low alcohol content.
For each of the two value propositions we outlined the overall concept with key insight, product mission, customer promise, core values, product attributes, inspirational visuals, competitive arena, strategic target group, success factors, and key messages for communication.
The launch of Taste-a-lot
In the fall of 2021, Spendrups launched the first of the strategic concepts, Taste-a-lot (under the Brutal Brewing brewery brand). Taste-a-lot was adopted by all grocery store chains in Sweden and given prominent shelf placements.