Abita Brewing Company

Abita Brewing Company

Founded in 1986, Abita is Louisiana’s largest craft brewing company.

Overview & Objectives

Located 30 miles north of New Orleans in Abita Springs, Louisiana, Abita’s state-of-the art facility produces more than 140,000 barrels of beer per year and is distributed across the U.S.

With an influx of breweries launching across Louisiana, competition has increased and there are more local/Louisiana-based beer options available to the craft beer consumer. To combat this challenge, Bond Moroch, in partnership with Kansas City agency/partner Novella Brandhouse, developed an integrated marketing campaign to help Abita regain market share in the Greater New Orleans area, keep the brand top-of-mind among consumers, expand their reach among adults 24 – 35, and ultimately increase sales. The campaign: It Just Makes Sense (in New Orleans).

Approach

Bond Moroch deployed the following tactics over the course of 3.5 months

• Public Relations

Our PR efforts focused on New Orleans print, broadcast, and Internet media and beer trade media. Specifically, we leveraged the announcement of Abita’s seasonal favorite – Abita Strawberry Lager – launching year-round as a means to tie back to the It Just Makes Sense (in New Orleans) campaign to garner additional coverage across the state. We promoted Abita and the Strawberry announcement among select online influencers as well, creating partnerships and giveaways for additional exposure.

• Social Media

We executed an aggressive social media advertising campaign and optimized account pages with campaign imagery. Regular content development was managed by the Abita team.

• Digital Advertising

Our digital media initiatives featured an array of video and static creative we developed and included geofencing (e.g. popular events in the New Orleans area, competitors, and bars), display advertising, YouTube TrueView and OTT. Additionally, we distributed two e-blasts to Abita’s “Brew News” distribution list.

• Traditional Advertising

We deployed strategic outdoor advertising across New Orleans, including rotating digital billboards in high traffic areas on the city’s major highway, buses running multiple routes in the city, and streetcars spanning downtown and in residential areas.

Results & Impact

To measure success, we looked at internal benchmarks set, industry standards, and sales numbers.

Our initiatives were focused on targeting and reaching a younger demographic, in particular through social media, YouTube, OTT, and influencer relations – platforms that traditionally reach millennials. Consumer engagement on social media resulted in 27,202 clicks, a 2.72% click-through-rate (CTR), and 999,812 impressions over the course of the campaign. The average CTR is .2%.

Our video content resonated very well among our target consumer. Our OTT campaign averaged a video completion rate of 96%. Our goal was 93%. The campaign on YouTube TrueView reached a View Through Rate of 42.73%, exceeding our goal of 38-40%. Select creative for our display campaign exceeded the industry norm of .46% CTR (and .51% CTR for consumer services) with some creative peaking at a CTR of .67%.

We secured extensive coverage among food, lifestyle, and NOLA-focused online influencers and media, including 20+ media hits in New Orleans, across Louisiana, and beer industry media). Viewership on broadcast networks totaled 151,995. Potential media impressions totaled 3,378,011. Highlights include coverage on 3 of the 4 TV networks (and their websites) in New Orleans and major TV outlets in Baton Rouge and Shreveport, LA. We secured coverage in nearly all major beer trade outlets.

An estimated 26,300,896 impressions were reached with our combined out-of-home initiatives (billboards/buses/streetcars).

Abita saw an increase in sales in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes – where our campaign primarily ran – for specific product brands, including Strawberry Lager. We saw product sales increases range from 12 – 441% compared to the same period the previous year.