Festivals are great opportunities for both retailers and brands to increase sales and footfall.
By Elena Dimama
Festival season is back in full swing, and brands are gearing up for another period of boosted sales – meaning good news for retailers.
Giveaway time
Brands have already started giving shoppers the chance to win festival-related prizes to build excitement ahead of events.
Brooklyn Brewery, for example, has launched new festival-friendly 440ml cans of Brooklyn Pilsner to the off-trade, to coincide with the beer’s naming as Official Beer of Glastonbury Festival. Drinks purchased at the five-day event – the world’s largest music festival – will be served in co-branded Brooklyn Pilsner cups featuring the brand’s logo, doodles and bright yellow livery.
The Glasto partnership sits alongside a multi-million-pound national marketing campaign for Brooklyn Pilsner in 2023. The campaign seeks to drive consumer awareness and sales through a combination of on- and off-trade POS; video on demand; partnerships; out-of-home and digital advertising; and social, PR and experiential activities.
Meanwhile, Brothers has launched its biggest-ever on-pack promotion, with over a million prizes up for grabs, including 10 pairs of tickets to Glastonbury, for which it has been named as the official cider. Other prizes include more than 1,000 festival-related goodies, including hoodies, T-shirts, bucket hats, sunglasses and can coolers, as well as a million coupons for 50p off Brothers drinks. To mark the Glastonbury association, Brothers has launched a 500ml bottle of Festival Apple Cider, a variant only previously available in cans.
Live through to 31 May, the campaign ran across Brothers 500ml glass bottles of Festival Apple Cider, Toffee Apple Cider and Cherry Bakewell Cider, and on 10x440ml can multipacks of Festival Apple Cider.
Brands expanding
Festivals can be a fantastic opportunity for brands to broaden their appeal to the much-desired Gen Z and Millennial crowds, which is why this summer a lot of companies are reaching out to big events.
CCEP is partnering with an array of festivals as part of its latest campaign for its Costa Coffee ready-to-drink (RTD) chilled coffee range this summer. Running throughout the summer, the campaign sees the brand tie up with Pride, Might Hoopla, Barcode Festival, Car Fest, and Kendal Calling, where sample bikes and a branded Land Rover Defender will distribute cans of Costa Coffee Latte, Vanilla Latte and Caramel Latte as well as the Frappe range.
Festival goers can also head over to ‘The Dopamine Booth,’ an immersive experience inspired from the current dopamine dressing trend of wearing clothes that enhance your mood. Choosing from one of three ‘moods,’ users will be able to curate their own experience, transporting themselves away from the intensity of the festival for a moment of calm. Visitors also have a chance win a year’s supply of Costa Coffee RTD chilled coffee.
Industry charity GroceryAid has named Fatboy Slim as headline act for this year’s Barcode Festival.
The event will be held on Thursday 6 July at Magazine London, with the aim of raising more than £900,000 to help support grocery colleagues in need with free and confidential emotional, practical and financial support.
To enquire about ticket packages and sponsorship opportunities, email events@groceryaid.org.uk or visit barcodefestival.co.uk.
Hard seltzer White Claw is another brand splashing out significantly to expand into festivals this year, investing more than £4m to support UK music events this summer.
The multi-channel strategy will see the brand take over UK festivals, including London’s Wide Awake (28 May), Mighty Hoopla (3 June) and All Points East (19 August), as well as Love Saves the Day (2-3 June) in Bristol, Parklife (11-12 June) in Manchester and Boardmasters (10-14 August) in Cornwall.
“The better-for-you drinking experience was trailblazed by White Claw targeting core Gen Z and Millennial audiences,” Michael Dean, Head of Marketing, explains.
“By supporting a long line-up of local and national festivals, our fans won’t need to compromise as White Claw will be on hand to offer drinkers lighter alternatives that deliver genuine refreshment.”
Meanwhile, Cornish Orchards, the new Asahi brand, will trial its new Cherry & Blackberry Cider and Raspberry & Elderflower Cider flavours at the Great Estate Festival in Scorrier (2-4 June), which has expanded its capacity this year to 10,000 people.
The soft drinks category is worth nearly £3bn in convenience and is the third most valuable category to independent retailers. CCEP has identified an opportunity to drive further growth over the next three years as part of its ‘Refresh Tomorrow’ soft drinks category vision.
Sparkling soft drinks are a popular refreshing accompaniment to help bring summer occasions to life. Retailers should focus on leading brands like Coca-Cola, led by Coca-Coca Zero Sugar (the fastest-growing major cola brand in retail by volume and value). It also includes Fanta, the number one flavoured carbonates brand in GB and Schweppes, the number one mixers brand in convenience.
