Carlsberg Malaysia eyes 11% increase in sales with Harvest can designs

A deeply rooted tradition observed in Sabah and Sarawak is the annual thanksgiving Harvest festival marking the bountiful abundance of rice harvesting. To commemorate the festivities, Carlsberg has launched a first-of-its-kind Harvest packaging that accentuates tribal elements and icons of paddy on Carlsberg Danish Pilsner and Carlsberg Smooth Draught cans.

Celebrated throughout Sabah as Kaamatan and Gawai in Sarawak, the harvest festivals are a massive cultural celebration with families, friends and tribe members over delectable meals, traditional dance, and music pre-COVID. As we approach the second year of Harvest amid the pandemic, Carlsberg wishes to uplift spirits with its Harvest campaign and to rekindle relationships in a modest manner with beer lovers. 

Marketing director Caroline Moreau (pictured below) told A+M that the team put together resources about a year ago to work on the concept and development of the “Celebrate Abundance” cans in order to have them launched in the second quarter of this year. While she declined to comment on the monetary investment of the campaign, Moreau said the cans bear the masthead of “Menuai and Meraikan Bersama”, with the paddy icon symbolising the bountiful harvest of rice crops, and is further accentuated by the tribal elements as a representation of the local natives.

The latest cans mark the second round of its Celebrate series, which was first launched during Chinese New Year this year with the Celebrate Prosperity limited-edition packaging. For the Harvest festival, Carlsberg produced over 1.6 million cans. It is eyeing an incremental sales of +11% and an increase in market share as well as improvement on its brand equity performance.

According to Moreau, the campaign is supported by a 360 activation plan, with investments across both print and digital media. These included Facebook, Instagram, content publishers and East Malaysian social media influencers  to drive awareness and hype of our first-of-its-kind “Celebrate Abundance” cans in conjunction with Gawai and Keaamatan festivals.

"In addition, we are further amplifying our marketing communications through in-store activations, media and consumer promotions across all channels in East Malaysia. We also leverage eCommerce platform to extend this opportunity to our fans residing in West Malaysia and also to fellow East Malaysians," she added. The consumer promotions include exclusive premiums such as jerseys in three collectible designs, inverted umbrellas available in three colours; and gadgets such as tablets and watches.

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