Brothers Cider has overhauled its product range and packaging as part of a £4m brand refresh aimed at “igniting” the cider category.
The Somerset-based cidermaker has opted to ditch sweeter flavours including Toffee Apple and Cherry Bakewell in a bid to appeal to a more mature cider drinker.
Its new four strong lineup comprises a trio of 3.4% abv fruit ciders and a 7% abv apple & pear cider; a callback to the brand’s original flavour, which debuted at the Glastonbury Festival in 1995.
App-Solutely Pear-fect, Un-Berrylievable, Best of the Zest and Berry Sub-Lime will roll into Tesco, Morrisons, Booker and One Stop from 12 February.
All flavours will be sold as single 500ml cans (rsp: from £1.75), single 330ml “sleek-style” cans (rsp: from £1) and 6x330ml multipacks (rsp: from £5.50).
Brothers said the new flavours had been developed as cider drinkers were now “more motivated by sessionable, easy-drinking flavours, and quality, authenticity and sustainability than by quirky flavours”.
The new ciders had a “much-reduced sugar content” and benefited from no added colours or artificial flavours, it added.
Brothers head of marketing Nicola Randall said Kantar research showed consumer palates were “getting more mature as they got older” leading them to switch to “other products like ready-to-drink, ready-to-serve cocktails and seltzers”.
“Fruit cider had ceased to be as relevant for them,” she said. “We needed to make a more sessionable liquid to get those lapsed drinkers back and also to get new drinkers into the category.”
Randall denied Brothers had reduced the strength of its fruit ciders purely to benefit from duty savings on alcoholic products up to and including 3.4% abv.
“The overarching priority for us was to get this liquid tasting the best that you could possibly taste,” she said. “Had that meant keeping them at 4% [abv] we would have done it.”
The overhaul would be supported by a “major campaign of consumer activity” comprising TV sponsorship, video on demand, festival activations,, consumer PR, in-store activity and social media from May, according to Brothers.
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