Michelob Ultra’s “Don’t Call Your Beer Diet” Brand Strategy
By shifting the focus away from the “low carb diet” fad and positioning itself as the beer for the serious athlete, Michelob Ultra has attracted consumers with an active lifestyle who socialize while running, biking, kayaking or having fun outdoors.
In a 2016 commercial spot for the Super Bowl, the brand kicked off its new brand platform and tagline, “Brewed For Those That Go the Extra Mile.” The brand started the Michelob Ultra Extra Mile Challenge where users were encouraged to extend themselves by going the extra mile.
The brand has emphasized taste and substantiated the claim with ingredients and consumer reviews. The low carb and low calorie make-up is barely mentioned — and it’s working. With this brand strategy, Ultra is flourishing when other low carb beers are fading.
Craft brewers now represent more than 12 percent of the beer industry’s market share. While big beer brands like Budweiser and Miller struggle to maintain their audience, Michelob Ultra found double-digit growth (17% in 2015) by finding the right appeal in the low-carb/low-calorie beer subcategory.
Michelob Ultra’ success reminds me of Miller Lite’s activation of the light-beer subcategory in 1975. While other light beer brands targeted women, Miller Lite targeted males and made associations with masculine, pro-sports players. In an advertising campaign named in the Top Ten of all time by McCann-Erickson Worldwide, athletes were shown having an exuberant time with Miller Lite, and engaging in a friendly argument about whether they preferred Miller Lite because it had more taste or was less filling. The diet appeal was buried in the tagline — “Everything you’ve always wanted in a beer. And less.”
Michelob Ultra and Miller Lite Demonstrate a Basic Brand Strategy
Beware of the associations that accompany your primary functional benefit. Some consumers associate diet beers with a watered-down product and overweight, sedentary people. The challenge for these brands is to create alternative top-of-mind associations that are compatible with the weight loss message.
Michelob Ultra’s use of active outdoorsy-types having fun and drinking the product socially provides a different set of associations that are appealing and repress negative connotations with diet products. Miller Lite did this with the “less filling vs. great taste” argument among athletes, which used humor to distract and grow affinity for the brand.
The functional benefits, in this case lower-calorie, lower-carb beers, will come through without having to be explicitly mentioned. Trust your audience will figure out the advantage of a low-carb or low-calorie products, and the act of figuring it out will lead to more persuasive core messaging.
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