OLD BREW, NEW BOTTLE - Relaunching Lion Beer
Sri Lanka's iconic beer brand Lion was losing relevance with its people. What it needed was more than a facelift.
Tapping into the heritage.
Sri Lanka comes with some of the strictest alcohol marketing laws in the world. Typically termed a 'dark market', all marketing had to be carried out through surrogates. As if this weren't enough, Lion, the country's oldest known (and homegrown) beer brand was losing favour with the youth. But what Sri Lanka does have in abundance is the pride of the Sinhala people.
Nearly two decades ago, veteran musician Chithral Chitty Somapala covered the iconic Many rivers to Cross in Sinhala. The song even to this day holds special revelance to the young Sri Lankan.
The Idea:
Reviving an iconic brand meant rekindling old memories. In this case, bringing back a flood of nostalgia to the now-grown-up Sri Lankan. We had Chitty reinterpret the song for the modern Sri Lankan in the light of all the opportunity present today. The song is currently being filmed as a full-scale music video. Meanwhile, here's Chitty setting the stage on fire at the launch of the song.
Find Your Lion
The Surrogate was an initiative called 'Find Your Lion'. Launched with a song, it curates a number of activities to keep the young Sri Lankan inspired. The message also doubles up as a point-of-retail branding in the form of a stark black mnemonic with the face of a lion peering through the froth.
