1. Rather than use focus groups to test its branding and messaging, New Belgium used insiders in the bike community and brewery friends who had a personal history and knowledge of the brand. Evaluate this decision. Should New Belgium have used the more traditional approach to ensure the widest possible input to its marketing strategy?
2. The case mentions how the branding and communication strategy of Boston Brewing Company (makers of Sam Adams) shifted as the company grew. The positioning for Sam Adams changed from a folksy tone to one that looked to position Sam Adams in relation to Budweiser, Miller, and Coors. Does New Belgium face this same risk, or will the company be able to maintain its whimsical and personal touch with consumers? Explain.

This case examines New Belgium’s foray into mass media advertising and the development of the company’s brand image. Until 2005, NBB’s most effective form of advertising had been its customer's word-of-mouth. Indeed, before New Belgium’s beers were widely distributed throughout Colorado, one liquor-store owner in Telluride is purported to have offered people gas money if they would stop by and pick up New Belgium beer on their way through Fort Collins. Although New Belgium’s beers are distributed in 26 U.S. states, the brewery receives numerous e-mails and phone calls every day inquiring when its beers will be available elsewhere.

With expanding distribution, the company recognized a need to better reach its far-flung customers. It consulted with Dr. David Holt, an Oxford professor and branding expert. After studying the young company, Holt, together with Marketing Director Greg Owsley, drafted a 70-page “manifesto” describing the brand’s attributes, character, cultural relevancy, and promise. In particular, Holt identified in New Belgium an ethos of pursuing creative activities simply for the joy of doing them well and in harmony with the natural environment. With the brand thus defined, New Belgium went in search of an advertising agency to help communicate that brand identity. It soon found Amalgamated, an equally young, independent New York advertising agency. Amalgamated created a $10 million advertising campaign for New Belgium that targeted high-end beer drinkers, men ages 25 to 44 and highlights the brewery’s image as being down to earth. The grainy ads focus on a man rebuilding a cruiser bike out of used parts and then riding it along pastoral country roads. The product appears in just five seconds of each ad between the tag lines, “Follow Your Folly … Ours Is Beer.” The ads helped position the growing brand as whimsical, thoughtful, and reflective. In addition to the ad campaign, the company maintained its strategy of promotion through event sponsorship's.

Today, New Belgium uses new forms of media to promote its brand while still maintaining its overall branding philosophy. In 2008, NBB announced a partnership with Backbone Media LLC to help manage NBB’s media planning and buying. Although the company has not ruled out new television advertisements, NBB has focused on other forms of “new media” such as social networking sites in order to attract new consumers to the brand. (As of late 2009, NBB has roughly 53,000 fans on its Facebook site.) NBB abandoned its newsletter in exchange for a blog, to which viewers can subscribe and receive news articles and feeds. NBB has also begun to use Twitter. Called “beer tweets,” consumers can post their comments and thoughts about New Belgium on Twitter. The Twitter team, consisting of four employees, responds to the beer tweets in what web developer Kurt Herrman calls “a two-way street” of communication (As of late 2009, the NBB Twitter site has roughly 9,400 followers and continues to grow.).

Although New Belgium may vary the types of media it utilizes, the company’s goals to be a truly sustainable brand have remained the same. Its message is, and always has been, that consumers can be environmentally conscious and still have fun. Some people scoff at the idea that a company that sells alcohol can be a socially responsible brand, but with each new social and environmental initiative, New Belgium seeks to prove its critics wrong.