In 2022, the German brewery Krombacher became one of the main sponsors of the biggest heavy metal festival in the world: Wacken Open Air. Not wanting to be just another beer brand sponsoring a music festival, Krombacher was looking for an impactful way to combine its commitment to metal music with its long-time involvement in species protection.

Growling Creatures – the first metal band whose lead singers are animals. Their real animal sounds became the most brutal metal growls, giving a damn loud voice to endangered species – presented on the main stage in Wacken in front of 83,000 metalheads.

How can Krombacher avoid being just another beer brand sponsoring a music festival?

How can the brewery draw attention to its commitment to species conservation and raise money for it without disrupting the heavy metal party with preachy messages?

The strategy for addressing these challenges was simple: give the metalheads what they love. And make an effort to do it as authentically and credibly as possible.

A European bison, cuckoo, lynx and their threatened bandmates released a headbanging EP on all streaming platforms. The songs on it, “Nest Destroyer”, “Furry Inferno” and “Small Number of the Beast” premiered on the main stage in Wacken in front of 83,000 metalheads. In addition to airing on all festival screens, fans on the holy ground in Wacken could buy Growling Creatures shirts to raise awareness and money for species protection. Online, the metal community partied to three music videos and went wild in a growling challenge.

The Growling Creatures reached 83,000 fans live in Wacken. They also gained more than 85,000 online streams and 18 million impressions in only two weeks. Magazines, podcasts and users turned up the volume even more, leaving no doubt that species protection is heavy metal.