Warsteiner pokes fun of rival Beck’s
Ha, ha, the laugh is always on the loser. The German brewer Warsteiner was having some advertising fun at the expense of rival beer brand Beck’s. For five days in early July 2015 Warsteiner put up a digital billboard in New York City’s Time Square touting its German credentials. “Warsteiner. Premium German Beer From, You Know, Germany” was the slogan on the 15-storey-high billboard.
The meaning is fairly clear: Warsteiner was taking a potshot at Beck’s, whose parent AB-InBev recently preliminarily settled a U.S. class-action lawsuit over Beck’s. Slogans such as “originated in Germany” had led some drinkers to think the beer was brewed and bottled in Europe, while in fact it is made in St. Louis.
Of course, Warsteiner would not say that the implied target is Beck’s. “We needed to reassure consumers that every drop of our beer in America is bottled and brewed in Germany,” said Brian Elliott, the CEO of Amsterdam Worldwide, the ad agency employed by Warsteiner, which began exporting to the U.S. in the 1980s.
Will the Times Square “spectacular” have an impact, though? In plain figures: Genuine German beer exports to the U.S. stood at 1.4 million hl in 2014, which awards the “German segment” a 0.5 percent of the total beer market. Besides, renting the billboard would have been fairly expensive. It is estimated that charges can amount to USD 2.5 million for four weeks. But who can say of themselves that they showcased their beer in Times Square?
