Marketing news: Cobra unveils its twisted vision

Expect to hear a lot about Cobra beer for a while, with a new marketing campaign, a new draught font and a sizeable on-pack promotion under way.

Cobra’s new font, unveiled at Bar.06 last month by the company’s founder and CEO Karan Bilimoria, is a departure from the traditional. The new twisted font is aimed at style bars, and was first distributed to venues last month. The counter-mounted font was created by Williams Murray Hamm and features familiar elements of the Cobra brand, while setting itself apart with a striking, twisted design.

In the off-trade Cobra has launched its first on-pack promotion in association with Sony. The promotion gives consumers the opportunity to win one of 100 40” Sony Bravia LCD televisions.

Consumers input a unique code from the pack into the Cobra website, which determines instantly whether they’ve won.

Included in the promotion is Cobra Lower Cal, the subject of Cobra’s new marketing initiative. The campaign, entitled Plan B, will promote the beer to female beer drinkers this summer.

The £1m integrated advertising campaign plays on the fact that the lager is not an alternative to dieting, but is a lower-calorie alternative to regular lager. As Simon Edwards, marketing director for Cobra, explains, Lower Cal is “targeted at the social athlete”, those who want to balance a social lifestyle with a healthy one. He says one of the aspects that has contributed to Cobra Lower Cal’s success has been its straightforward approach to the light beer category, while still concentrating on taste.

“We are really keen that consumers have a chance to try the product for themselves and so are investing heavily in sampling activity,” explains Edwards.

© db July 2006