A new campaign from Irn-Bru will see 57 different bottle designs hit shelves in January as part of a tartan-based ‘Bru’s Your Clan’ campaign.
The initiative will see a range of tartan labelled packs which it is hoped will encourage shoppers’ to look for their own clan tartan pack, leading to a boost in sales for local retailers in the first eight weeks of the year.
The limited edition packs will be available in 56 clan tartan designs, covering the top 100 most popular Scottish surnames. The 57th tartan design will be the orange and blue Irn-Bru tartan allowing shoppers who may not have a clan, to still be part of the campaign.
“We really wanted to do this at the start of the New Year,” AG Barr Commerical Director Jonathan Kemp told SLR. “It’ll look fantastic on shelf when you see five or six facings in different tartans. The family will want their tartan around the table, and when Burn’s Night comes round that will be even more pronounced.”
Kemp said the campaign tapped into trends for personalisation and an increased interest in family trees, made popular by TV programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are?
The campaign is available across two-litre and 500ml bottles, exclusively in Scotland. A two for £2 price marked deal is available on the two-litre bottles, while the 500ml PET bottles are pricemarked at 95p.
Kemp revealed around £1m would be spent on the campaign, with a large proportion of that going on in-store POS for the convenience channel. “It’s an opportunity for retailers to bring in extra sales at a time when it is difficult to do so,” said Kemp. Much of the marketing for the campaign will come through social media, which Kemp said helped drive the marketing strategy at the firm. “Social Media is huge for us now,” he said. “We’ll likely spend double in 2015 what we spent in 2014. If you get on a train in the morning you can see how engaged people are with their mobile devices.”
Kemp advised retailers to stock up as soon as stock becomes available in January. “I’m really excited about Bru’s Your Clan. There’s a natural affinity with the brand – we always try to do something that is unique to us, and this won’t be any different so retailers can expect the same irreverence.”
