The Purist Clean Lager

01.Client

New Belgium Brewing

02.Term

12 Months

03.Scope

360º Content Plan
Content Audit
Content Strategy
Creative & Art Direction
Photo & Video Production
Full-Service Post-Production
Social Media Management
Influencer Strategy & Mgmt
Paid Media Strategy & Buying

04.Project Overview

In recent years, the craft beer category experienced significantly slower growth due to shifts in consumer habits. For an entire generation, seltzers, hard kombucha, and better-for-you beers are now the norm. To capitalize on this shift, New Belgium launched an organic lager with traceable ingredients and low cals/carbs. They partnered with us to craft and execute a 360º Content Plan to launch the brand, drive traffic to their store locator, and ultimately convert at retail (Whole Foods, Bevmo, etc) and via delivery services (Drizly, Minibar, etc).

The Results

Through strategic content creation, clever content distribution, and authentic earned media partnerships, The Purist became a top seller at premium retailers like Whole Foods, Bevmo, Sprouts, and more. 

Analyzing the Space

For all of our 360º Content Plans, we begin with a content audit. For the Purist, this consisted of analyzing New Belgium’s other brands, key competitors, peripheral brands, and then distilling it into key insights to guide the content strategy.

Crafting the Content Persona

To kickoff the Content Strategy phase, we identified what makes The Purist special. Why should our audience care? What does the brand represent? And how will that dictate our content?

Mapping the Tentpole Moments

Beer marketing is heavily concentrated around three summer holidays: Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. For the Purist, product hit shelves at select retailers in May, so we began our organic publishing at the same time. Then, for Memorial Day in late May, we did our first big  coordinated paid, owned, and earned push.

Memorial Day Campaign Architecture

In the lead up to and throughout Memorial Day weekend, we launched a coordinated campaign spanning paid, owned, and earned channels. For paid, we experimented with a three-tiered approach to test different creative assets and targeting. Each of these ads pointed to the beer finder on New Belgium’s website. For owned, we boosted all posts to drive potential followers to the profile. And for earned, we shipped seeding kits to select influencers and athletes to spark relationships. 

A New Beer—With Timeless Stories

As a new product in a crowded space, we needed a foundation of brand storytelling to establish the beer and to tell an evergreen message. It was particularly important to lean into New Belgium's brand equity since it's secondary in hierarchy on the packaging. This all came together as a series of IG Stories that became pinned highlights on the profile.

Clean Lager

Ingredients

Crisp Taste

Force for Good

Humble Brags

Creating the Launch Look

We produced a shoot in a sunny, modern location to capture the bright, light, and forward-thinking appeal of the brand. For these launch assets, we wanted The Purist to be the star of the show with the environment and people a backdrop and for context. 

Distinctly The Purist

On owned channels, we wanted our posts to pop amongst the noise. To achieve this, we square cropped each asset and used a thin blue border to play off the packaging design. This created a scroll-stopping presence in our audience’s feed and complemented the cans in the image. Additionally, we periodically introduced bold message blocks related to key product propositions. 

Pin Pointing Paid $$$

As a new account building from scratch, it was critical that our paid ads resonated—which takes trial and error. So we tried a variety of visual approaches, messages, and targeting to see what worked—then we doubled down. 

“KP understands the impact content has on a brand.”

—Dave Sypniewski
New Belgium Brewing

Earning Authenticity

With pay-to-play influencers a dime a dozen, we wanted to create relationships with people that reflected our values. We focused on specific audience interests and shipped beer with notes to 200+ people. We then doubled down on those that engaged.

Golf Personalities

Peak Performers

Health & Wellness

Lifestyle
Sports

Content Creators

Storytelling Partners

While most beer brands focus on celebrities with massive endorsement deals, we partnered with thought leaders within key audience interests. Our partnerships with Legions of LA and Goat Hill Park created ample opportunities to capture authentic, striking visuals and piggyback audiences.

Legion of LA Elite Cycling Club

Founded to increase diversity and encourage inclusion in a very, very traditional sport, the Legion of LA Elite Cycling Team is unlike any other. Led by Justin and Cory Williams, the team has become a dominant force in the crit cycling scene. They truly are being the change that they want to see. We sent one of our content creator partners, Jussi Oksanen, to document them on a ride through the hills of LA. We then used these assets for owned and paid publishing. 

World Class, Working Class at Goat Hill Park

While most golf courses pride themselves on exclusivity, fine dining, and a massive staff of landscapers, Goat Hill represents something entirely different: "World Class, Working Class". As a go-to spot for many golf and action sports personalities, Goat Hill was a perfect partner. We worked with them on a series of events, shoots, and, of course, free beer tickets with golf rounds. 

The Super Bowl (of Summer)

There’s no bigger holiday for beer than 4th of July. Using the analytics from Memorial Day as a North Star, we crafted a 4th of July campaign that doubled down on IG Story ad placements and incorporated a new owned recurring series called “The Purist’s Guide to ________.” We then partnered with Goat Hill to host a small, private golf outing that doubled as a content capture event. This gave us a breadth of visuals to use for 4th of July and the rest of the summer. 

Analyze. Optimize. Repeat.

In addition to the day-to-day, post-by-post management and subtle adjustments, we created Monthly Snapshots that paired raw data with strategic insights. This gave us the foundation to optimize content for future publishing and repurpose existing assets to take The Purist’s content budget further. 

Credits

01.Client

Shaun Belongie
Dave Sypniewski
Clay Hoffman
Ethan Stienstra
Kelsey Ireland
Lisa Kiefer
Johanna Laubscher

02.Direction

Blake Vincent Kueny
Thomas Pearson

03.Production

Blake Vincent Kueny, Thomas Pearson, Jim Feltz, Cheyenne Arnold, Jussi Oksanen, Bob Plum, Decker Rush, Ryan Sherman, Caitlyn Gaurano, Russell Spencer, Rip Zinger, Adam Knight, Gabe L’Heureux, Topher Riley,  David Powell, Keegan Callahan, Keith White Audio Inc.

04.Talent / Thanks

Austin Dixon, Paola de Oliveria, Justin Williams, Hunter Grove Diego Binatena, Angel Munoz, Cassidy Elison, Ian Peck, Morgan Rich, Grant Ellis, Mark Warman, Tim Woodruff, David Stoddard, Teddy Kuhh, Timmy Reyes, Adam Knight, Chuy Reyna, Caitlin Harrington, Rip Zinger, Gabe Garcia, Casey Bannon, Brendon Thomas, David Powell, Christina Rea, Michael Sims, John Ashworth, Chris Trott, Jack Fardell, Eli Ivy, Goat Hill Park

“KP's input, strategy, and execution were critical.”

—Dave Sypniewski
New Belgium Brewing