Danish brewer Carlsberg is using Adobe Experience Manager to help manage assets across its many brands’ digital channels.
Jens Jermiin is VP Group Digital, Media and Creative Content Production at Carlsberg. Before that he was Creative Director Europe at The Coca-Cola Company. He talks to Figaro Digital about creativity, controversy and being part of the conversation
Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Carlsberg?
I manage a team of subject matter experts, operating within digital specifically. We have a digital newsroom that is working with trends detecting and producing content to make sure our brands are participating in the cultural context of today, around the world. There’s a digital communications expert, media expert, a brand PR expert, a marketing technologist and design experts, and we work across markets and across brands—helping and consulting with brands and markets.
So that’s what I do. Managing a great bunch of people mainly recruited from the media, digital and creative industry, and we’re helping bringing the creative culture and digital thinking into the corporate environment of a global company.
We’ve seen Carlsberg make a comeback this year with the return of the ‘If Carlsberg did…’ strapline after a four-year hiatus. Can you tell us a bit about the project?
We’re focusing on revitalising the ‘If Carlsberg did…’ campaign platform because it’s one of the few iconic beer campaigns in the world. It is the campaign idea that lends itself beautifully up against cultural trends and thus has become part of popular culture. We can now come up with a creative response, almost in real time, to any sort of cultural trending leveraging ‘If Carlsberg did….’ It’s a very good creative platform for us to be part of daily and weekly conversations about what’s going on out there.
And now we can support that campaign globally. You’ve seen the work that our UK colleagues have made with ‘Probably the best poster in the world’, and you’ll hopefully see much more of that kind of work. You’ll see more engaging, more surprising, wittier, more creative stories and activations across the multiple touch points and assets that we bring to life. It’s full throttle and it’s all in because we really believe that this is the campaign platform that’s going to take the brand to the next level.
Carlsberg has a history of producing inherently comical, share-worthy marketing stunts. Why is this type of experiential marketing so effective for your brand?
Isn’t that what marketing’s all about: to tell great stories, to surprise, to be in the now, to be part of popular culture? I think so. It’s got a lot to do with the rise of social media. In the extreme noise of messaging and communication, our ability to be part of those conversations, to be mentioned or shared by people on social media requires these kinds of activations and requires these sorts of ideas to be brought to life. We also know that, if people are talking about our brands, this is more valuable than us talking about our brands ourselves. Because people are becoming media and, in the end, you trust people more than you would trust commercials.
We did the biker cinema viral stunt in 2011 [a couple of Belgian cinema-goers found themselves surrounded by mean-looking bikers] and the recent beer-dispensing poster, but in 2013 we also did a film called Poker where real people were called in the night and asked to help out their friend who was losing money around the poker table. It quickly became a viral piece of content. That specific idea has actually been turned into a TV program in Denmark, and it’s really popular because you’re talking about friendship and real emotions. They’re developing a whole eight episodes of that and that’s now being broadcast on Danish national TV. [Carlsberg have also recently launched a range of beer-based male grooming products.]
Carlsberg’s light-hearted take on the controversial Protein World ‘Are You Beach Body Ready’ poster was firmly rooted in social conversation. How do you decide which trending topics the brand should respond to?
These kind of campaigns hit a cultural nerve: they’re disruptive and they’re of course share-worthy because they make people talk. Because we’re a brewer, we have this principle against which we test our content ideas—we call it the ‘pub test’. Everything we do has to pass the ‘pub test’. We ask ourselves, ‘Would this get talked about in the pub?’ Because that’s how people consume communications today: it’s part of snacking, it’s part of entertainment, it’s part of information, and people will talk about it if it’s good enough. Most communication is becoming two-way rather than brands just pushing out messages one way.
The ‘pub test’ is of course a highly relevant metaphor for us a brewer because that’s where the beer’s drunk, but it’s also good advice to other marketers. If your brand story will get talked about in the pub, you’re on to something good.
Carlsberg has achieved a balance between highlighting its products and creating entertaining, shareable and engaging content. How important is it for marketers to find this balance?
I believe that’s what great marketing communication is all about, finding that balance. The product will have to be an integrated part of the story, because only then does it become effective communication. Before approving an idea, we try to retell the story and explain what the idea is all about. If we can talk about the idea without mentioning the product, we normally don’t do it or we haven’t worked hard enough to really define what the idea’s all about. And that’s specifically why we think that ‘If Carlsberg did…’ has so much potential, because it is all about how great the beer is. It is really a quality story but it’s brought to life in a comical way, touching upon any cultural context out there. But it is really all about the product quality. So that’s done pretty smartly, and it is all about finding that balance to bring the product position to life with relevance and meaning in today’s context.
What are you doing to accommodate the ‘always on’ consumer and the eruption of new channels and devices out there?
We know that content travels between channels and people, and we know that great content travels better than poor content. So consequently we are focusing on telling the best possible stories, in the right context and at the right contact. As mentioned before, we’ve established a newsroom that listens to and detects trends. We then filter that through our brand strategy and decide which ones to pursue and which ones to observe further.
In order to stay relevant and curious, we are trying to implement what we’re calling a four-hour creative circle: we’re getting the trend report in the morning, we’re then moving to a four-hour creative process which spits out creative responses to what we’re observing and ideas of what kind of content we should turn that response into, and then we decide which one to push out. Then we push it out and we listen to the reactions and how it travels and how it’s being shared, and then we amplify it if it’s performing well or we kill it if it’s not performing at all.
So we’re trying to live the world as we’re defining it: we’re trying to live in a test and trial mode, although it’s difficult sometimes, of course. But we’re really trying to be as close to real time as possible, and that is how we think that digital can be the recruitment engine of the younger target audience.
What other brands’ marketing strategies do you admire and why?
I think there’s a lot of admirable brands out there. I’ve worked ten years with The Coca-Cola Company —I’m very impressed with how Coke has managed to stay on top for years and the way that their communication has evolved yet has never lost the core essence of the brand. I’m extremely proud to be part of that and I’m a great admirer of the company and the brand. But being Danish I should mention Lego. One of the world’s iconic brands: a brand that has been able to establish a global consistency, while respecting and tapping into cultural differences. I think Lego does that fantastically. They have a strong heritage, there’s a relentless drive for quality, and their campaigns resonate with the target audience. The proof is in their business performance.
Is there one single campaign you’re most proud to have been part of?
I’m proud of being part of the team that’s now revitalising ‘If Carlsberg did…’ with the ambition of making this one probably the best campaign in the world. I think we’re setting the creative bar quite high and we’re trying to push ourselves to bring it to life in unexpected ways.
There will be failure, but hopefully there will be more successes, and most importantly we will learn and we’ll get better. One day when we’ll be looking back, I think this project is one that I’ll be very proud of having been part of.
Interview by Estelle Hakner.