Endeavour Group’s BWS bottle shop launches new brand platform and ad campaign

Endeavour-owned bottle shop BWS has launched a new brand platform to capture the attention of its growing Gen Z and young millennial customer cohort.

Bottle shop BWS has launched a new campaign and brand positioning "Refreshingly BWS". Photography: Shelley Horan

Endeavour Group-owned bottle shop BWS has launched a new brand platform, “Refreshingly BWS”, as the business looks to connect with Gen Z and young millennial audiences, who currently comprise a third of its customer base in Australia.

The new tagline and accompanying campaign rolls out as Endeavour reported growth in its retail division in December, with in-store sales across its portfolio up by 2.8 per cent in the quarter, according to its Q3 trading update released last Thursday.

The group, which also owns Dan Murphy’s, reported growth of 1.2 per cent on the previous year in retail sales across its portfolio, totalling $2.4bn. In-store sales also grew 2.8 per cent in the quarter. It also reported the ready-to-drink category was the fastest-growing in the quarter.

According to Endeavour Group’s chief marketing officer Joanna Rose and BWS head of brand marketing An Le, the business sees ­significant value investing in the brand at this time.

“Part of that is because our purpose is all about creating a more sociable future. So that need to create connections, moments, memories and stories through our products, our spaces and our places, comes from a culture of creativity, is really at the heart of Endeavour. And I think brand strength is really a big and important enabler of that,” Ms Rose said.

“So much of the brand is not about what we say to our external customers, it’s about the experience that our customers have with us and our team have with us. So having something compelling, connected, engaging – this emerging North Star – just enables the whole business to really rally around that experience.”

What started as a campaign brief from BWS to its creative agency M&C Saatchi evolved into a bigger communication play for the brand; the Refreshingly BWS platform will be applied to a range of business and customer touchpoints that will live beyond the campaign it has launched with.

“We saw this as an opportunity really to reset the brand,” Ms Le told The Growth Agenda.

“We looked to investing into the BWS brand as a way of doing that. The need to double down on brand investment absolutely is something that we’ve carried on through, especially now during times of the cost of living crisis, we see the importance of brand even more heavily for BWS. Following Covid, in the world that we’re in today, the need to invest in brand is pertinent for us. We saw the biggest growth opportunity being Gen Z and young millennials.”

Marketers across many categories are adapting their strategies to capture younger audiences; by 2028, BWS expects the Gen Z and young millennial cohort will overtake its Gen X customer segment.

The creative approach was developed off the back of research conducted by M&C Saatchi and its research arm, Precision, which found that young audiences often feel intimidated by their drinks-buying experience in bottle shops.

The creative agency wanted to infuse the platform and campaign with a sense of fun and inclusivity, while communicating the range of beverage choices available.

In a 30-second video, a pair of orange boots, sans human, takes viewers on a journey to a BWS shop, strutting and moonwalking their way through vibrant, sociable city streets, concluding with the phrase “Here’s to those who drink whatever floats their boots”.

In another video, the human-less boots slide through a BWS store, with a voiceover that mentions the range of choices available, from more traditionally popular types of alcohol such as lager beer to bubbles, as well as growth categories among younger audiences, such as non-­alcoholic beer and seltzers.

Creative director at M&C Saatchi Brendan Donnelly said: “Removing the person from the boots removed the judgement of who it is walking to the bottle shop to get whatever they like, in a fun, engaging way.”

Mr Donnelly said in comparison to BWS’ previous platform “How Convenient”, the new “Refreshingly BWS” positioning marks a step towards the brand’s aim to connect with audiences on a more emotive level.

“The platform is a strong thing for the brand to have, it’s that bit of glue that helps pull everything together, from an advertising campaign to how their team can act through all parts of the business,” Mr Donnelly said.

“Refreshingly BWS is the way we do things as a brand, a unique and original refreshingly BWS way that will help separate BWS from other bottle shops. We want BWS to be your wingman for good times.

“It’s a campaign that doesn’t feel like a campaign for a bottle shop, which often take things too seriously. This is a brand that’s prepared to have some fun with the category and themselves, honest and straight up and a little cheeky. This gives us a good platform to work from into the future, not just challenging the category but continue to challenge ourselves.”

Bottle shop BWS has launched its new brand platform "Refreshlingly BWS". Photography: Shelley Horan

The new campaign runs across TV, large format and retail out-of-home, social, online video and in-store placements.

However, the platform idea will also be delivered through the experience of BWS store team members of nearly 10,000, which Ms Le said the brand recognised as its best advocates.

“They live and breathe the BWS brand every day. So it’s actually delivering the Refreshingly BWS and positioning through them. And really giving them the tools (and) giving (them the) empowerment to bring that brand platform to life every day,” Ms Le said.

It will also be integrated to other customer touchpoints, including its stand-alone stores, Woolworths-attached stores and its drive-through shops. Ms Le also added its app and e-commerce channels are critical to BWS’s future growth, and the new platform will influence those channels too.

“It about really connecting with the audience around the things that make us unique. The last two years have seen us really evolving the brand. This campaign was always about us bringing to life what makes us special. And for us, it’s about being the most welcoming drinks retailer out there and bringing a little bit of fun and magic back into the drinks-buying experience,” Ms Le said. “But in us doing that, we really saw the value of actually developing a platform, more so than just a campaign that is a flash in the pan. Our brand positioning is really ­inspiring all of it.

“It really made sense for us to work on a platform that lives beyond one campaign but also influences the transformation we want to see through our whole brand experience as well.”