How do you launch a new brand in a crowded market when the product has no hugely different features?
How do you get people to remember your brand in a category which can easily be generic?
Change the words.
The new campaign for Stella Artois Cidre is clever. Instead of just trying to repeat the brand name, it tries to change the whole category name around the product; but as it uses a foreign word rather than a new brand name it works.
It reminds me of how Starbucks used new size names to make coffee seem new and exciting, to break people out of their existing coffee routine.
It's not Cider, it's Cidre. Brilliant. No sunny orchards, no '3 guys in a pub'. They take the European values of the master brand and create something simple and humorous that jams the product name in your head without feeling overly sold to.
After a few years of being a little lost, the Stella campaigns are really starting to find their feet, surviving the post "Reassuringly Expensive" hangover. It's lovely to see.
