Brothers Cider backed by £4 million festival-themed advertising campaign

To support its major relaunch, Brothers Cider is being backed by a festival-themed advertising campaign this summer.

Supporting Brothers Cider’s quest to reignite the entire flavoured cider category, the campaign kicks off the brand’s biggest ever package of marketing support. Running throughout the summer, the comprehensive £4 million push comprises video-on-demand TV advertising, a nationwide six-sheet poster campaign, extensive festival-related activation at more than 100 summer events, consumer PR, and a major drive on social media.

It is 29 years since Brothers Cider debuted at Glastonbury Festival, located just three miles from the brand’s cider mill in Shepton Mallet; the association has thrived through a presence at every event over the intervening period, with the brand continuing again this year as the Official Cider of Glastonbury Festival. Employing the strapline ‘Always Look on the Brothers Cider Life’, the 2024 advertising campaign draws on Brothers’ festival roots and gives a light-hearted insight into the brand’s new positioning as ‘seriously unserious cider’.

The new 30-second TV ad features rain-soaked festival-goers having the time of their lives with mud, music and mates. The ad shows Brothers Cider creating brightness, whatever the weather.

Building on this creative theme and focusing on a contrasting pair of muddy festival wellies – one dull, black and white and stationary, and the other dancing in glorious Brothers technicolour – digital six-sheets illustrate how life with Brothers Cider is far more playful and colourful than life without the original fruit-flavoured cider brand.

The TV ad will appear across the ITVX platform, achieving nine million impressions over the summer burst. The out-of-home (OOH) nationwide six-sheet campaign will feature on 800 panels, reaching over 10 million consumers.

To further enhance the advertising package and help provide a 360-degree approach to the launch campaign, brand owner Brothers Drinks Co has enrolled three key social media influencers to create content about its flagship cider brand for a combined audience of 2.3 million targeted followers. The influencer-led activity will form one pillar of a multi-level social media support programme that will also incorporate paid-for advertising on Facebook and Instagram, reaching 12 million additional consumers across the summer.

Timed to augment the advertising support, Brothers Cider will benefit from extensive in-store activity comprising side-stacks and shipper units complemented by shelf-barkers, banner dividers, hanging flags and shelf-strips across the retail and cash & carry landscape.

This year, Brothers Cider’s festival footprint will extend well beyond headlining to 200,000 attendees at Glastonbury Festival, as the brand will also be the designated Official Cider of Sundown Festival in Norfolk, Blackheath’s Kisstory/Uptown Festival, Bristol’s Harbour Festival and Love Saves the Day. The interactive Brothers Cider Fun House, complete with a series of interconnected rooms (each with its own unique wow factor); multiple Instagram-friendly photo-opportunities; and a colourful and fruit-inspired themed bar, will attend all these events, guaranteeing a totally immersive experience for consumers.

In addition, the brand will be present at another 100 festivals nationwide this year, either deploying the impactful Brothers Cider mobile bar or featuring extensively at event bars. Significant collaborative social media activity – including competitions for tickets to all events – will reach over 1.3 million people.

Nicola Randall, head of marketing at Brothers Drinks Co, says: “Our relaunch strategy is all about reigniting the fruit cider category and this campaign is a real case of putting our money where our mouth is. The new ads will drive awareness of our new flavours and our disruptive new-look packaging and generate interest and boost trial for stockists. The upbeat, festival-themed ads showcase our new approach as ‘seriously unserious cider’ and will encourage consumers to join us and ‘Always Look on the Brothers Cider Life’.

“Like our dancing festival welly, the fruit cider category needn’t be stuck in the mud, and we want to lead the way by being bold and disruptive and breaking category norms. Assisted by substantial in-outlet activation aiding both depots and independent retailers, our media support will cut through and resonate strongly with today’s cider drinkers.

“Brothers Cider was born at Glastonbury and festivals are in our DNA, so it’s fitting that this relaunch year sees our biggest-ever programme of nationwide festival collaborations. Through presence at over 100 festivals, consumers will get to sample the great new taste of our fruity flavours and experience Brothers Cider in its natural habitat: the outdoor summer festival.”