Is Molson Coors’ Madrí scratch card promotion a stroke of genius?
Molson Coors has launched a scratch card promotion for its lager brand Madrí Excepcional that will roll out across more than 2,000 pubs throughout November. db finds out more.
Throughout the entire month of November, customers visiting Stonegate, Wholesale and Greene King venues will receive a scratch card with every pint of Madrí purchased, giving them the chance to win one of 1,375 prizes.
The prizes include a range of Madrí merchandise such as hoodies, water bottles, t-shirts, sweatshirts and sticker packs and follows the Spanish style lager’s recent summer campaign with Spanish DJ duo Mestiza.
Rapid rise in interest
The activation also builds on Madrí Excepcional’s rapid rise to become the country’s second-largest world lager brand and the most successful beer launch in on-trade history, now ranking as the third most drunk lager in UK pubs and bars.
Despite being launched by Molson Coors in October 2020, Madrí Excepcional became the most talked about beer in the UK by 2022.
The lager recipe is a collaboration between Molson Coors and La Sagra Brewery, south of the Spanish capital, and claims to capture “the soul of Madrid”. However, the beer itself is actually brewed at Molson Coors’ brewery more than 900 miles away in Tadcaster, Yorkshire.
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Explaining more about the promotion, the brand’s marketing controller Sophie Mitchell said: “Madrí Excepcional’s rapid growth has made it a stalwart for on-trade venues across the country, helping our partners tap into huge demand for Mediterranean-style lager.”
The Madri effect
The beer’s success has been no secret either, in fact, it has been considered a marketing success, despite it being conjured from nothing. For instance, speaking about its rise to fame irrespective of its authenticity credentials as a purported Spanish lager, beer writer Pete Brown said: “If we look at premium lager, it’s now 111% of the volume that it was in 2019. This is ‘the Madri effect’ which opened up a new category called ‘Mediterranean lager’.”
Mitchell suggested that the new campaign is really trying to show that the category of world lager is not seasonal and can also stay relevant and exciting in the cooler months too. Molson Coors has already done what it can to tap into beer trends to stay relevant by also launching Madrí into the growing alcohol-free beer market with a new 0% ABV version that was released earlier this year.
Driving excitement
Mitchell explained that the scratch card initiative is “all about maintaining that momentum through the winter months and rewarding loyal Madrí Excepcional drinkers and driving excitement with the chance to win exclusive merchandise”.
Brown, assessing the way the brand is marketed, had already identified that although “it’s very very easy to slag Madri off, given that it’s Carling with added hop extract” but emphasised how, irrespective of this, “Madri is doing something that is phenomenally right” and pointed out that to gain ground, others within the beer sector “need to look at what they are doing”.
Mitchell added: “By supporting our on-trade customers to capitalise on both Madrí Excepcional’s buzz and the crucial Q4 trading period, we’re reinforcing Madrí Excepcional’s position as a driving force within the category.”
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