In a declining market for beer, new audiences are presenting challenges the industry has not grappled with in year’s past, so to tackle these problems, Natural Light would need to start with a careful analysis to identify exactly what issues they needed to prioritize solving.

Natural Light discovered that beer penetration amongst 21-29 year olds is specifically declining and that this demo is critical for the long term viability of the beer category, because if someone doesn’t drink beer at legal drinking age (21) then they are very unlikely to drink beer later in life.

Armed with this insight, the brand dug deeper into the reason why young 21+ consumers were not drinking beer and identified through research, four major components ABV, health & wellness, price and flavor.

Creating a fun, highly accessible flavored beer that filled a gap in the market was the aim. The Strawberry Lemonade flavor was the top polling flavor when tested. We knew that the 21-29 demo was opting for more flavor-forward, lighter drinks. When combined with a very unique, eye-catching packaging whose color palette helped convey the flavor profile, this product became the magic bullet to address our challenge of decline within that target demo.

To bring the product to market, we partnered with former NFL punter, Pat McAfee. He's well known for his legendary stories and storytelling – Pat was tailormade to depict the definition of a “Naturday.” It’s more than a beer. It’s an ethos that when you get that perfect mix of best friends, vibes and adventure, you create epic memories. Pat’s life has been filled with Naturdays. We wanted to bring to life one of his best stories.

PR strategy was built around maximizing multiple storytelling zones, identifying editors within business, sport, lifestyle, local & national news, food/drink & trade that have affinity for Natty, Pat and alcohol innovations. Given the flavor of the beer, there was concentrated effort to reach female demo through women's media.

Key messages:

-For those who like strawberry lemonade…and drinking beer, sit back and relax, it’s Naturday!

-Natty and Pat McAfee created “Red 18,” an animated film recounting one of Pat’s most epic Naturdays

Our target audience is young drinkers (aged 21-29) who like beer, and drinkers who don't typically choose beer, but like fruity flavored alcohol.

Film launched on Pat's social channels. Along with the product, Naturdays film was distributed via multiphased PR strategy.

-Pre-pitching top media under embargo for initial wave of coverage

-Leveraging interviews with Pat & Natty executives

-Seeding kits & product sampling to media & influencers

Natural Light vetted hundreds of packaging designs to convey the unique flavor. By opting against the packaging trope of fruit, the brand nailed the design that has helped make the flavor so appealing in market; a unique color gradient and impossible to miss flamingos.

The final design added flamingos because they are a relevant image in pop culture and helped convey the strawberry lemonade flavor. Lastly, flamingos, like our drinkers, are social animals.

To determine the name, we took a popular term that fans were already using which we discovered is a common quote through social listening.

Most brands talk about flavor in a dry, boring way (e.g. fruit notes, citrus taste, clean finish). Given this is not applicable to the brand’s core drinker, we decided to be as straightforward and humorous as possible – thus landing on the tagline “for those who like strawberry lemonade, and drinking beer.”

To date, the campaign has collectively garnered over 750 million monthly impressions around it’s launch as a result of this approach and there has been an outpouring of affection across social media for the product.

We’re still gathering additional sales figures since this just launched mere weeks ago, but the early read is extremely strong. The new product is on track to be roughly 3x greater than our internal volume production for the full year 2019.

The brand reported 0.31% share of category in March, now 0.14 YTD.