Walked to the bus stop last week, saw this poster and my heart jumped... Grolsch comes from my hometown (well, it used to, although the factory has since relocated, the spiritual home of Grolsch is still my hometown) and I'm always proud when I see it abroad. However, in this case I was also piqued by the ad itself: green light district? For a Dutch beer? (Disclaimer: where I'm from, we don't have a red-light district. We're a million miles away from Amsterdam, literally and figuratively). What were they getting at? Are they importing the red light district into the UK? Intrigued, I decided to check out the website and do some background research on the of the who's and how's behind this campaign.
Apparently, the campaign was first started in Edinburgh, and is now rolled out across the UK. The idea is to bring a Dutch beer-drinking experience to the English crowd (and Lord knows they could use it... they have no clue about what a proper Grolsch should look like) and to engage the bar staff. The aim of "the Green Light District is all about serving quality beer with quality service" (from this). I think this is a brilliant idea which I can see working well with the crowd they're after if they're trying to initiate trial and increase brand awareness (which I reckon what they must be trying to do). It's fun, quirky, special and stands out from the beer-competition. Nice execution too.
Check out this and this and this on the objectives and a description of the campaign, and this to read what the Publican (a trade rag for pubs) says about the campaign and this for some more background on the agency behind the campaign. And if you want to see some other cool advertising Grolsch has done, check out this on Youtube and this. I wonder what prof Ritson thinks about the Grolsch marketing strategy...
Oh, and happy belated Koninginnedag (Queen's Day, see here for the explanation) everyone!
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