The campaign was an example of guerrilla marketing at its finest. In an industry that has used everything from invitations to private parties in deserted castles to football half-time epics starring Clydesdales and animated beer bottles, coming up with fresh new marketing ideas isn’t easy, especially low-budget ones. But everything about the Moose Light Lime campaign was done cheaply and quickly, according to Ray Gracewood, Moosehead’s director of marketing. Conceived, created, and bottled in just eight weeks, the brand was meant to break into a burgeoning market fast.  “We take great pride in the fact that we were able to turn Moose Light Lime around to adapt to a trend that we saw coming,” he says. “To make this work, we needed to get in as quickly as possible. The marketing campaign we used wasn’t so much a brand-building exercise as a product-awareness exercise.”

 

To promote the product, Moosehead tapped into an arsenal of social media tools: a Facebook fan page; a Twitter brand-launch countdown; a choreographed PR campaign designed to generate media buzz. The company also heavily leveraged its sponsorship of the Magnetic Hill concert of New Jersey rock band Bon Jovi to get the brand in front of potential buyers.

 

To complicate matters, Moosehead was launching another new label at the same time. However, the rollout for Cracked Canoe couldn’t have been more different; if Moose Light Lime is an attempt to stake out a market position in a brewing fad, Cracked Canoe represents the birth of a solid new brand for the brewery—a unique premium light lager designed to win long-term loyal customers. Everything about Cracked Canoe is decidedly low-key: its unembellished black label, its distinctive green-tinged bottle—even its name is designed to conjure up the idea of a slow paddle down a lazy river. 

 

Moosehead’s marketing strategy with the lager amounts to slow and careful brand building. “A short-term product introduction is not part of our strategy with Cracked Canoe,” says Gracewood. “We have taken a much more traditional approach than we did with Moose Light Lime, by using more traditional media and making sure that all media had a consistent message.”

 

During the first days of the brand introduction, Moosehead sponsored a series of bar tastings around New Brunswick. The company also intentionally stayed away from offering introductory discounts “to stay in the spirit of a premium position brand,” says Gracewood. The Cracked Canoe website positions the beer in the centre of a group of fake news stories about fast foods, speed metal bands, and a power drink that allows you to work for 72 hours straight. The message is clear: In a frantic world, Cracked Canoe is slow, calm, and relaxed.

 

Moosehead is no stranger to innovative brands. About 20 years ago, it turned the local beer business on its head with Moosehead Dry, a brand that used a selling point usually associated with wine. It was the brewery’s most successful launch. Until now, that is. Last summer’s introduction of Moose Light Lime and Cracked Canoe has replaced Moosehead Dry as the most successful product launch in company history. The two new beers account for about 12% of the brewery’s overall sales since their introduction (that’s 

2.2 million bottles and counting). Recent product launches have accounted for about one-tenth of those figures. “The success of both brand launches were due to a strategic focus on innovation,” says Gracewood. “In terms of both product development and emerging media, it was all about being proactive with new opportunities.”