Beattie McGuinness Bungay - Cobra
Train
THE BUSINESS PROBLEM
Cobra is the UK’s no.1 Indian beer brand. But it’s become synonymous with curry, and with 96% distribution in all licensed indian restaurants, can only grow so far. BMB were challenged to reposition Cobra as a credible premium beer to help the brand gain distribution in pubs and style bars and extend from its strong base in Indian restaurants.
THE IDEA
We developed a new brand platform to drive this repositioning: “A fresh take on authentic India” – an idea which celebrates the brand’s origins and embraces the bright new culture that is emerging in today’s India. At the heart of the campaign is a TV ad - entirely street cast and featuring three up and coming Indian talents: Manou, India’s first street fashion blogger, leading audiovisual collective B.L.O.T. and food writer Vandana Verma.
However we knew that the brand couldn’t be repositioned with traditional advertising messages alone – cultural credibility was needed to make this new idea of Cobra resonate with their target audience. So we also approached the Guardian with a proposal for a collaborative new approach.
The result was a set of three documentary films featuring our collaborators - each giving us a fresh take on Indian music, fashion and food.
A supporting social media campaign features regular updates from our collaborators, as well as a facebook competition which offer fans the chance to win their own experience of this fresh new India and the world of our collaborators.
This advert for Cobra does what it sets out to really well it takes a product which every one knows and only drinks in a specific setting and makes it appealing to a wider variety of occasions. They use young, good looking actors, a song which is currently fashionable and a nice warm looking setting to associate the product with summer.