Heeding critiques of its beer over the past few years, Carlsberg has introduced a new brew it promises to be better than the last.

Carlsberg is owning up to its long-running global slogan ‘Probably the best beer in the world’ by admitting it wasn’t entirely true. “We became one of the cheapest, not the best,” the Danish beer brand confesses in its new UK campaign.

As a result, Carlsberg is promising to realign itself with its proposition with its latest Pilsner, “We had to create a better beer,” one it claims has been “completely rebrewed from head to hop.”

“We have upgraded every touchpoint of our brand and launched our innovative ‘Snap Pack’ multipacks to enable us to deliver a reduction in plastic of up to 50% from brewery to store,” says director of marketing at Carlsberg UK Lynsey Woods.

“These were significant undertakings, but the biggest challenge is letting UK drinkers know we have changed and getting them to fall back in love with Carlsberg again.”

In keeping with the self-deprecating tone of the campaign, Carlsberg UK also took to Twitter to promote several tweets critiquing the product – following up to comments with apologies and recommendations to try its new offering.

Image credit: prexamples.com
@roystar11

At press time, @roystar11’s tweet has more than 1500 retweets and almost 7500 likes.

“The promoted tweets are a form of postmodern offence archaeology,” marketing expert Scott Guthrie told British digital newspaper City A.M.

By ‘offence archaeology’, Guthrie is referring to the relatively new practice of trawling through the digital or social media record of a public figure with the intention of revealing something that would cause offence in contemporary contexts.

Guthrie continues, “They are looking out for offence and then embracing it, rather than calling it out and shaming.”

According to Carlsberg, the new Pilsner is a complete overhaul, with new hops, a new recipe, new barley, a new label and a new brew. As a disclaimer, Carlseberg says the brand is still committed to carbon zero brewing and the beer is “still made the Danish way.”

Further Reading:

• This independent brewer just trademarked the colour of beer »
• Thinking outside the bottle – revitalising a dying culture by saving the world with beer »
• Hungry Jack’s and VB trade ads: ‘The Beers Are Better at VB’ »

Image credit: Carlsberg