Human touch and the art of branding

Consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages daily, yet it still seems as if many marketers neglect a basic common denominator in every human being irrespective of any colour, age, nationality and gender: the human touch.

One brand that does seem to understand this, however, is SAB’s Castle Lite. This brand has proved its worth by tapping into something which many consumers want: a cold beer. Castle Lite marketers knew that competing on packaging or taste alone against the likes of Heineken, Windhoek or Amstel, would be optimistic. Instead, they opted for the human sensory elements of see, touch and taste to validate their positioning of coldness in the marketplace. After all, most consumers always respond to their thirst for beer as a “need for a cold one”, an insight that Castle Lite understood and explored by introducing a thermo chromatic icon onto its packaging.  It is in the shape of a nifty little snow castle, which is synonymous with the Castle brand, that turns blue when the beer is at the perfect drinking temperature letting the consumer know that the beer is ready to be enjoyed. It’s a gimmick, yes, but gimmicks are fun… and clearly they work! Today the brand is achieving exemplary results with an annual growth of over 25%, making it the largest growing premium brand in South Africa. In the words of Mr Norman Adami, MD of SAB, he articulated that, “we will not sacrifice volumes for brand equity. We don’t just make a brand more available, stack it high and discount it. We are not chasing volume or going head to head with Heineken, we are playing to our strengths, not theirs”.

The era of pushing brands to consumers has long passed its sell by date. The question marketers should be asking is, “What is in it for the consumer?”, because consumers are certainly not asking “What does this piece of communication tell me about the brand?”

In the words of Leo Burnett, “The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability. Nothing is more believable than the product itself”. This is a profound truth that, in my opinion, Castle Lite has incorporated through understanding the human touch.

Thabiso Ramolefe, OIL intern

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