Drinking Beer With The Enemy: From Poacher to Partner

The weird and wonderful world of German grocers has been turning heads for a while. Remember when Lidl convinced us to pay £450 for their bizarre trainers? If you’ve ever been shopping at Aldi for a can of Koka Kola or tub of Ben and Gary’s ice cream, you might have wondered how they get away with it. 

How do they get away with copy and pasting every element of the packaging, then just changing one minute element? All of the sudden Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Half Baked is My Peanut Butter Half. Same sky blue and grassy green package but now a sheep is the mascot instead of a cow. Oh, and it’s half the price. It’s easy to see why consumers love it. They can get a cheap version of their favourite brand and it tastes pretty much the same. And you can see why brands hate. 

Copy Cat Chaos

“Effectively, Aldi is like a parasite sucking all the goodness and creativity out of our brand” Andrew Keeble, founder of Heck food, said. He is one of many brand heads who have sued Aldi. Amelia Harvey, from The Collective, is another. “Aldi is deliberately trying to use the cues of successful brands to fool consumers into buying them,” she said.

And what does Aldi say to that? Basically: f*ck off. We’re doing what every other private brand does. Or, for the not so succinct version: “What we do with our exclusive brands is identical to what the rest of the market does with own label, which is to draw cues and make products easily identifiable for customers without seeking to copy,” Aldi UK & Ireland chief executive Giles.

Easily Swayed Trolleys 

For national brands, the final cherry on top of the Ben and Gary’s is that the private lines are doing a great job. Aldi brands are constantly nabbing taste-testing awards. Some barbarians on Supermarket Wars even picked the Aldi dupes over classic McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes!

The battle against private brands is especially rough in Europe. We’re just not a very loyal group. If it’s cheaper and it tastes good, we’re happy. Meanwhile, stateside, national brands are delighted to see so many logo-loving consumers (according to Harvard Business Review, part of that is because Americans are so inundated with advertising from big brands). In the US, the average supermarket only gets about 15 per cent of its sales from private labels. European grocers, on the other hand, often report than more than 50 per cent of their sales are from a private brand. 

No matter where you are on the planet though, private labels get a major boost during tough economic times. If you’ve just been made redundant, keeping up with the Jones’ posh brand-name condiment collection suddenly isn’t such a priority. 

Battle of the Brands 

You can see both sides of the story. Start-ups and artisan brands fight tooth and nail to get their products out there and build a customer base. No one wants to see the smaller brands go under. That being said, it’s nice to save a bit of hard-earned cash, especially when you’re buying something forgettable like that third bottle of £3 wine? 

It’s not all cheap and tasty for consumers though. Experts have said that these private labels can actually hold back innovation within the food industry. When a grocer is producing their own stock, they are more agile. On top of that, the big brands are doing all of the researching, testing, and development while the private lines reap the reward. Why create the latest and greatest flavour of crisps just to boost Aldi’s profits? 

If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em 

So, what do smart brands do in response to companies like Aldi? Well, why not just crack open a beer with the enemy? That’s just what the newly made-over BrewDog did. 

In the latest -- and perhaps most bizarre --- brand collaboration, Brewdog knocked off Aldi. Yep, you read that right. BrewDog made a brew called YALDI IPA and made it look just the like an Aldi IPA … because Aldi had just released an IPA which was a copy of BrewDog’s old IPA. Are you still with us?

We’ve taken the liberty of explaining with pretty pictures:

Inspired by Aldi's 'Anti Establishment' Punk IPA which was a close copy of the old BrewDog, co-founder James Watt playfully tweeted that they were going to make beer with the Aldi logo on it. People loved it. Aldi actually loved it. Next thing we knew, Aldi and Brewdog were riding off in the sunset. Aldi started selling the knockoff BrewDog beer and the real BrewDog beer. Aldi even agreed to plant a tree in the BrewDog Forest every time they sold a case.

Shoot First, Aim Later 

If there is anyone who knows what the hell they’re doing in the world of business, it’s James Watt. It’s easy to dismiss his irreverent, anarchic style as rubbish for kids who don't know the reality of the big, bad business world yet. That is until you realise that he runs one of the fastest-growing brands in the UK and is the brains behind a company now worth more than a billion Great British pounds. He has done things differently and people are literally drinking it up. 

BrewDog holds the idea of radical transparency near and dear. They believe that business can be a force for good. Okay, now, back to Aldi. How did BrewDog decide to connect with Aldi? Is this part of their long-term marketing plan? I highly doubt it.

As Watts says, "Don't waste your time on bullshit business plans." His brand follows a “shoot first, aim later” philosophy. Rather than painstakingly planning out some heavy-handed attempt at social media humour, Watts’ cheeky tweet was a simply a quick fire joke at Aldi’s poor attempt to “draw cues ... without seeking to copy.” - or at least that’s how Aldi UK & Ireland’s chief executive, Giles, likes to put it.

These days we expect everything to be entirely contrived but the Aldi BrewDog saga was a wonderful twist of fate.

First we saw Aldi’s copy cat ‘Anti Establishment Brew’ and the next thing you know, we’ve bought a bunch of ALD IPA because, well, it tastes good and James Watt is the kind of man we’d want to have a beer with. 

Recycling Gum  

Okay, so that worked with BrewDog, but could a smaller brand pull off something like that? Honestly, probably not. Stealing a marketing strategy is a bit like stealing somebody else’s gum. It’s just not as good once someone else has already had it. 

Ultimately, BrewDog is the kind of brand that can do no wrong because they’ve got an incredibly strong voice. Customers know them and love them --- and, well, when you’re in love, loyalty usually comes easily.

If you want to find that kind of love, follow mum’s advice: be yourself. 
Build on what’s already there. Take your strengths and personality, show people why you’re one-of-a-kind, then let it shine through in your brand.