18. being friends cruiser folly mountain living playing win love And 7,000 more… beer summer hiking great ride fat tire bike enjoy better new belgium
19. A Base of New Belgium Fans…and Their Friends(In contrast to typical media campaign that ends with no continuing benefit…) As the Fan base grows, so does the “social reach” of the brand, to the Friends of the Fans Virtuous Cycle 200K Engagement App Convert to FB Fan Engagement App 100K Fan Enlists Friends Convert to FB Fan 0 Social Ads
Over 12,000 brand evangelists showed up at the Tour de Fat. When it comes to Social Media and Facebook in particular New Belgium has an unfair advantage. Beer, and especially Craft Beer, is inherently social.Hello, I’m Adrian Glasenapp and I have been involved in the New Belgium Brand building process for over 8 years in Creative, Advertising, Art Direction, Film and most recently Social Media.With me today is Greg Williams from Backbone Media and Roger Friend2 Friend.
We’re here today to tell the story of how our three companies, working together, have built a strong social media presence for New Belgium Brewing. We’ll talk a little bit about how we got started, how we built a foundation for our social media presence with a strong base of fans, and then how we’ve expanded beyond that foundation into developing a real, interactive relationship with our fans.
New Belgium Brewing is a company conceived on a bike seat, born in a basement and raised in the town of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Founded by a husband and wife team – Jeff Lebesch was an electrical engineer and Kim Jordan a social worker – the inspiration for New Belgium came while Jeff was riding his mountain bike around Europe. Finding freedom in Belgian brewer’s creative use of fruit, spices and esoteric yeast strains – Jeff’shomebrewing took a decided turn toward the Belgian when he returned. Jeff developed Abbey, a Belgian Dubbel, and an amber ale he named “Fat Tire” in honor of his trip.
Call out:Kindling social, environmental and cultural change as a biz role model.
CruiserBelgium tripEmployee owned
Gw - One of the best compliments we ever received is “NBB has found a way to market to people that don’t want to be marketed to”
We currently sell beer all along the west coast and throughout the western and central United States with markets as far east as North Carolina starting in 2009. DC, Maryland, Virginia in Sep.Craft beer in 26 states, we were faced w a challenge, how do we tell our brand story on social web, reached out to Backbone in summer of 2008
GW –As a compliment to traditional media it was apparent that there was an opportunity to extend our engagement using social media. One thing he was really worried about was that we might build a community of people who were not really fans of the company. It was very important to him that we not break our tradition of maintaining our values – he didn’t want us to appear on Facebook like another mass-marketing beer company. At that time we decided a few things: that we needed to keep all our campaigns very consistent with our brand,, and that we would focus on engagement apps, rather than advertising, to build a fan base. This was around the time we brought in Friend2Friend, who was a great fit as a partner because their work was all about engagement, which is exactly what we were looking for.
Adrian NBB existing community Rich contentContent is king (don’t have, need to create it)NBB needed a place to share our content.
Adrian –5 yrs ago we created a tag iine – Follow your folly, ours is beer.Roger - For the first campaign for New Belgium, the action we decided to use was a simple question that’s a part of the lingo of the brand. One of New Belgium’s marketing messages is “Our Folly is Beer and Bikes” so we decided to ask fans, “What’s Your Folly?”. It was a simple action, that was very easy for the user to participate in – and we kept it branded with New Belgium’s distinctive style and then gave people an incentive to participate – but an incentive that would be appreciated by true New Belgium fans – by giving away a New Beglium cruiser as the sweepstakes prize. We felt confident that we had designed the app in the right way, but this was the first foray into social media for New Belgium, and I think the company was a bit apprehensive, in part due to the concern that many brands have – how will fans react? Since we can’t control the users, will we get a response from them that’s completely off-brand? (dramatic pause)
Roger: The Follies campaign brought in 10k new fans, and was the beginning of a growth cycle that worked to build a foundation of 100k fans through 2009 and 2010. The beauty of social is that with each engagement app, new fans are brought into the fold, so after the app is over, you’re left with a higher level of activity, engagement, and response, that remains with you rather than disappearing. Each new app created an opportunity for existing fans to engage, and as they did so, they shared on their newsfeed, bringing in new fans. While the focus wasn’t necessarily just on numbers, we did have a goal of building a large enough base of fans that our activities on Facebook – the regular posts on the page – are reaching a meaningful channel – and we found that this was working. In fact, New Belgium has so many fans now, there are probably fans right here in the audience.
Move through
AdrianThe Beer Rangers are the faces of New Belgium on ground, and with this new beer so developing a number of local Pages manned by the beer was a perfect next step. We created individual Facebook pages for XX regions (how many are there?)which provide local representation in all these areas, letting people know where to get beer in their area. Now I can go onto the Wisconsin FB page and ask where to get beer in Madison, and the Rangers can answer along with fans who respond. Our #1 competition is local and variety – how do we remain competitive in Wisconsin when we’re a Colorado brewery? We sponsor events and nonprofits, we are active in these locations and this is a great way to address the #1 sales competition.
Adrian Century SocialWith all of our various social media activities, the main New Belgium page reached 100k fans in mid 2010. We wanted to celebrate, and we wanted to thank our fans. So, had a nationwide party.GW – this was a great opportunity to take an online action offline, any time we can drive traffic to an account it is very well received, this was a tipping point for sales to recognize and appreciate the value of social.
Move through
AdrianGiven our success of 2010 social media efforts our CEO, sales were asking In 2011 what is the strategyWe had - Critical mass, branding calendar, budget, personnel resources, partnersRogerGiven objectives and resources. FB, twitter, 4 Square, Groupon, mobileUltimately, focus on FB ubiquity of 750M
RogerAt that point,, the end of 2010, we felt we’d really built a solid foundation in our social media presence –, at this point we were around 150k fans, which really creates a meaningful channel for New Belgium – in fact, that’s more fans than about half of the print magazines that New Belgium advertises in, and they can be reached on a daily basis by a simple post from Adrian and his team. Our next step, then, was to work on deepening that relationship with fans. We wanted to increase engagement, give our fans a chance to express themselves and talk to each other and to us. We also wanted to increase the connection between the Facebook page and the offline world (should we say more about this?)
RogerThe roadmap we built, as a result, has some key elements that we believe support our overall philosophies, and meet New Belgium’s marketing objectives. We start with an app that aligns with New Belgium’s spring seasonal beer, Mighty Arrow – and focuses on engagement by featuring dogsThere are a number of elements around the Rangers, designed to strengthen the local presence that we’d already startedWe’ve incorporated QR codes, mobile, and location-based apps, all technologies we want to add to our toolboxOur summer campaign is an extension of New Belgium’s biggest marketing campaign of the year, the Joy Ride, a celebration of Fat Tire’s 20th anniversary
GWOur spring seasonal beer is Mighty Arrow Collaboration with Outside Magazine / paradigm shift as NBB has the larger following so they stood to gain as much as NBBDogs part of DNA of both brandsFocus was on content and engagement, not necessarily fansOutside page and NBB page10,000 fans shared images of their dog with 4:30 time spent and raised$ 10,000 for local dog sheltersThe cross-promotion between the two brands made the campaign stronger than either brand could create on their own.
Integrated campaign with beer label
GWGenerated excellent content for the wall which gets fans to interact.We want to facilitate conversations with our fans.
Roger:Food beer and musicAdrian – jump in with 12 pack ad
Roger: Rangers want their pages to reflect their personality and that of the region, but also want support from the Mothership. So we developed a tool for syndicating some of our mothership content out to the Regional pages, providing tools for the Rangers to make their pages stronger without having to develop 26 different apps and content pieces. Each Ranger page has a syndicated tab with a backend tool that the Rangers can control themselves. They have a standard module, that draws content from the mothership page, and then an event box where Rangers can feature local events and happenings. Typcially the only place that events are communicated is via facebook. Adrian – possible jump in
Greg: “Never advertise on facebook”Regional pages needed a larger followings, to justify efforts by allEmail list
Greg: One thing we’ve seen is a continuation of what we’ve experienced in the past – with each app we implement, we see an increase in the rate of new fans joining the page. You can see here that with our 2010 summer app, the Mighty Arrow app, and the recent initiation of our Joy Ride app, we saw this fan growth line increase. This is evidence that we’re continuing to successfully build our fan base, and as each app finishes, we’re left with a larger community of engaged, loyal fans than we had before. Adrian – Fat Tire pages, regional pages our next milestone would be 500,000 fans
Greg: Our traditional media focuses on our current customers, who fall into the 35-44 category, but with social media.25-34-year-old demographic, a group of people who are tremendously important to us, as they are our future.. Also, an opportunity to speak to women, which again our traditional media skews heavier male.
Maybe Peter video here, we could use a break in the talking
Maybe Peter video here, we could use a break in the talking
AdrianWith Share Your Joy Ride, we incorporated some elements that have worked well for us before, and added a few things that are new. In this app, users can upload their picture and put it on a Fat Tire label, add a comment about their joy ride, place it in a gallery of Joy Rides and share it with their friends. This easy and social way of sharing has worked well for us before so we’re doing it again. Something we added this time is an accompanying mobile app. One of the things we learned in previous apps is that, especially if we put a callout on the beer bottle, fans often want to engage with us right where they are – maybe at the bar – by using their mobile phone. So we added and iphone and Adroid version of the app, which uploads the picture to the same gallery on Facebook, and lets people engage from anywhere. We also wanted to do something creative with our packaging. Since we’re asking people to put their own joy ride on the label, we decided to take our bike off the label for the summer, leaving space for our fan’s joy rides. Roger: You know Adrian, they can download the app right here, and share their joy ride. Adrian: That’s right, Roger, and if they do I’ll give them a beer. (Gillian will be checking the app, give a beer to the first Joy Ride posted from the auditorium)Roger: You know, I think we’ve done a great job of telling the story, and I hope the audience has found it interesting. Greg: Or at least interesting enough to pay attention in hopes of getting a cold beer. Adrian: Well, everyone gets a cold beer as soon as we stop talking, you know. Roger: That’s right, Friend2Friend is sponsoring the happy hour at 5:15 (check watch) that’s xx minutes from now. There will be plenty of Fat Tire beer, and hopefully we’ll have a few Joy Rides shared from there!Adrian: Well, maybe we should wrap this up and head out there. Greg: I think we have to let the audience ask questions first. Roger: We do, and besides, we can’t just end here. We’ve covered a lot of ground, so I think we need to give this group a summary that they can take away with them. Adrian: Let’s do it.
Maybe Peter video here, we could use a break in the talking
Know your brand – AdrianCollaborate – GWIntegrate across all channels – RogerTake risks – AdrianEngagement = Sales - GW
Maybe Peter video here, we could use a break in the talking