This post is based on this article: Frat-boy Fave Jägermeister Is Taking a Shot at the Cocktail Crowd
Jägermeister is looking to move into the cocktail arena, in an effort to attract and retain young American drinkers.
Frankly, while in some regards I suppose that I understand it, I do not like this. At all. The phrase "drinks like the Jägermeister Old Fashioned" quite literally made me cringe.
But it's an interesting example of the dance between business and advertising. My gut tells me that Jäger probably had an inflatedly high market share, kind of like an overpriced stock that is destined to eventually drop in price, and as it regresses to a more realistic share of the chilled liquors/shots segment, Jäger is trying to counteract these lost sales with sales in a new market. It makes sense from a business perspective to attempt this, but from a branding and advertising perspective, this feels like a big overstep.
Advertising and branding is a delicate balance. On one side, brands tell consumers what the product is and on the other, consumers tell the brand what the product is. Often times, the best campaigns make full use of the latter, embracing an identity that consumers dictate. Without a doubt, the kind of advertising that embraces an identity that consumers give to it has the most staying power. Instead, this move from Jägermesiter feels like Steak 'n' Shake trying to un-ironically tap into the fine dining market by simply saying "chicken strips are luxury food now."
It's not Jägermesiter's fault that for myself, and many of my friends, our first association with the drink is this popular video from our high school days. That video has been around since 2007, and 10 years later my friends and I still say "Jägabombs" the same way he does in that video. But brands can't always dictate exactly how people will hear of them or what they will associate with them.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that Jägermesiter should market itself as the official drink of Jersey Shore Jerks, but the point is that with the original video (which was deleted and since re-uploaded) garnering more than 30 million views, and the fact that we've all witnessed frat boys' love of Jäger for years upon years, it's a massive amount of impressions and organic branding to try to reverse.
To better illustrate what I'm getting at, take one of my all-time favorite campaigns that I believe perfectly embraced an identity that consumers already gave to it: Taco Bell's Fourthmeal. Much like the "Jagabombs" example, my friends and I still often say "Fourthmeal" eleven years later when getting late-night Taco Bell. This campaign brilliantly and maybe not-so-subtly portrayed Taco Bell as what it already was: your favorite drunk food. Clearly, there's millions of reasons that a campaign like this worked when it did and probably couldn't have worked in another era. But the takeaway is that as it currently stood in 2006, consumers were regarding Taco Bell as perfect late-night drunk food and instead of trying to appeal more to the lunch crowd, they soaked in that identity and put a name on it. Today, even as myself and many of my peers try to be more health-conscious during the day, the association of Taco Bell with late-night food cravings remains the same. Fourthmeal always felt like something I was doing anyways but never had a name for, and that's how it resonated so strongly.
Another great example of this is Budweiser's "Macro Beer" Campaign. I loved this commercial so much when it first aired during the 2015 Super Bowl. The line "The people who drink our beer are people who like to drink beer" is brilliant. It says so much, so simply. And much like the "Fourthmeal" campaign, it's a great example of a brand embracing what they already are rather than trying to tap into every new market. I love all beers myself, and yes I can be found "dissecting" local craft beers and snobbishly assessing them with friends as that becomes a more popular activity for my generation. When I'm in that mood, no matter what Budweiser told me or made, they'd probably never get my attention. But I'll be damned if there aren't also many times that I simply want to have a good time, throw back a bunch of non-filling beers with friends and say to hell with all of the arbiters of tastes. Call it the difference between having a drink and just having a damn beer, but it's a feeling I understand all to well. This campaign did a magnificent job of owning that mood, instead of trying to change who it was to become a part of the growing craft beer market.
It is possible for Jägermesiter to completely change its brand, but the change would need to feel organic and natural, rather than just shouted out. Were I at a bar ordering an old-fashioned and the bartender said something like "would you like whiskey, brandy, we got Bulleit, Jäger" then I would be inclined to think I may have the wrong idea about Jäger, as it came from a bartender. But to simply be told, "Jäger is a cocktail liquor now," by Jägermeister itself will make me roll my eyes. The idea of co-existing as a frat boy favorite and a premium cocktail liquor feels extremely misguided. But you can never underestimate the power of good advertising, and perhaps I'll be completely wrong about this venture.