Come to Cider country

Come to Marlboro Country. No? Understandable. It’s nasty weather out there, and Marlboro Country is now a windswept scrap of pavement outside the pub, restaurant or coffee shop with only a floor standing ashtray for company and cold comfort.

How about a pint of cider inside the pub? Sound better? Of course it does. According to the NACM, cider is booming, their spokesman Simon Russell telling this blog:

The greatest regional provenance marketing campaign of all time is Marlboro Country. Setting aside all the health issues for a moment, it’s worth thinking about what made that campaign so iconic and succesful. Is Marlboro country a place? Does it exist geographically? Is it important that it does? The geography of Marlboro country is the panorama of the vast American west. But it is the rugged, outdoor masculinity of both the landscape and the characters who inhabited it; the cowboys, that come together to create the iconic imagery of the campaign. Marlboro is a brand that is naturally physical and strong. It is to be enjoyed by men who have tamed their environment, completed a job well done.

So geography – where the brand is located - is important, but it is not the campaign in itself. It is the values and emotions wrapped up in the depiction of that environment that made men the world over buy into the Marlboro message. We think that there are many parallels to be drawn between Marlboro and UK cider brands, principally those produced in drinks heartland of the South West:

• Both are strong, masculine brands
• That have an affinity with nature – though in the case of Marlboro this is clearly more of a construct of the marketing rather than the orchard origins of West country cider.
• They are closely identified with a region / geographical location
• They are both ‘rewards’ – be that post work, or post play, both brands signify a break, a relaxation, a deserved reward for a task completed.

Given the plethora of choice in the drinks sector, regional provenance will not be enough unless it is invested with an emotional trigger that not only celebrates a sense of place, but also of purpose. Cider brand communication needs to espouse a set of values and beliefs that come from its provenance. Marlboro country is a place of dry prairie and vast mountain ranges, but the purpose of these is to show how a ‘real’ man can live within this hostile environment and even conquer it. In similar terms, cider is of a place – the South West of England, but it needs to communicate what purpose this origin serves within what it offers as a brand.

So what might this be? Like most people; we are proud of where we come from, and where we live. When we ‘sell’ the South West to people foolish enough to live elsewhere we talk about:

• The beauty of the coast, the beaches, the moors, the hills. People come to the South West to holiday because of them. People who live here love them as close friends.
• The spirit of participation. From walking the coastal path to playing rugby, cricket; going surfing to hiking the moors. Down here you get involved.
• The climate. It’s warm. The sun shines.
• We’re not slow. We’re laidback and friendly.

So if Marlboro was heat, dust, strength, and grit. Cider (if it is truly synonymous with the South West) would be sun, sea, warm, relaxed and natural. It would also be youthful and independent of mind and spirit. The modern South West is Banksy in Bristol. Jamie Oliver opening restuarants on the beach in Cornwall. The huge music pilgrimage to Glastonbury every year. Too many existing cider campaigns talk about orchards, tradition, the craft of the cider making process. None of which gives the young consumer a reason to consider the brand in question. As previously stated, they don’t give a purpose to their brand origins in the way that Marlboro did so effectively.

Next up. The ice over cider moment and the dilution effect in marketing.