Beer Alliance launches £10m campaign

The newly formed Britain’s Beer Alliance has launched with a £10 million campaign and TV advert to get people thinking differently about beer.

Britain’s Beer Alliance, formed out of the previously titled Let There Be Beer Movement, is an umbrella organisation comprising of brewers big and small, industry bodies and pub companies including the likes of SAB Miller, Carlsberg, Heineken, Fullers, Wells & Young’s, The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA), Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) and Cask Marque.

Its first campaign entitled “There’s a Beer For That” will see £10m pumped into the British beer industry in a bid to convey three core messages; quality, diversity and versatility of beer.

While driving awareness and understanding of the wide range of styles and flavours of beers available in the UK, the campaign will also seek to educate people on how different styles of beer can be paired with different foods and occasions.

Mike Benner, Managing Director of the Society for Independent Brewers said: “Our support for Britain’s Beer Alliance adds the voice of the smaller British brewer to the campaign and tells consumers that this is a genuine cross-industry alliance, which we know is something that motivates them.

“There’s A Beer For That’s three core messages about quality, diversity and versatility are ones that SIBA members are already demonstrating in spades: our 800 or so brewers produced around 10,000 beers last year, embracing the full variety of styles and constantly innovating to create new tastes. British brewing has never been more exciting and There’s A Beer For That will help us to take that message to a broader audience, so we are of course delighted to support it.”

An advert for the campaign, shot over six days by acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom, will air on 2 November during ITV’s Downton Abbey.

He said: “This is the first time I’ve directed a TV commercial. The idea was simple – to film a cross-section of people around the country enjoying a beer with a meal. I like beer and I like food, so it was hard to think of a reason not to do it.”

The TV advert will be accompanied by a mix of advertising, social media based on the hashtag #BeerForThat, and on- and off-trade initiatives which will run across the rest of 2014 and into 2015.

In November #BeerMatch will be launched – a tool to get instant beer recommendations for a large number of the nation’s favourite foods, with recommendations crowdsourced from the UK’s most respected beer writers and sommeliers, followed by a Beer Club in which consumers can take part in a guided discussion of key beer styles hosted by beer experts on the @BeerForThat Twitter account every Wednesday.

There are currently more than 1,100 breweries in the UK with beer sales and pubs contributing £22bn to the UK GDP and generating £11bn in tax revenue.