Sampling and shopper marketing campaign readies for Bulmers

Heineken, the UK’s leading cider and beer company, has appointed integrated agency Space to support the launch of two modern ciders, Bulmers Cider Bold Black Cherry and Bulmers Cider Pressed Red Grape, which are available to drinkers and shoppers from this month.

The activity is part of a multi-million pound marketing campaign for the Bulmers equity, spanning new TV advertising, outdoor, digital, social media and sampling support.

Space has developed point of sale collateral that will roll out across 6,000 outlets in the on-trade from mid March. The bold product image on a yellow background features the words, ‘Begin with a Bulmers’ and is designed to act as a powerful call to action and to communicate the new tastes available to drinkers.

The agency has also created a shopper marketing campaign which goes live later in March to launch the new flavours across major grocery and convenience outlets covering communications across the shopper journey. In addition a large scale 900-day sampling initiative both in and out of store will give shoppers throughout the UK a taste of the new flavour variants alongside more established products in the Bulmers family.

Sean Kelly, group account director at Space said: “It’s a pleasure to continue our relationship with Bulmers. This activity is designed to encourage our target audience to begin their drinking occasions with the new product variants and continue to do so as part of their repertoire; it’s also a great example of how targeted execution can get product in hand and liquid to the lips of drinkers.”

Michael Gillane, brand director – Ciders at Heineken said: “Space continues to show real understanding of Bulmers’ target drinkers in both the on-trade and off-trade channels. Innovation is crucial to maintaining sales and momentum in the modern cider category, with flavoured cider key to this success and delivering the right messages at point of purchase is crucial to our launch plans.”