Brothers Cider looks to reignite category with major relaunch

Brothers Cider, the Somerset-born brand known for exciting flavour combinations, has announced its biggest-ever relaunch.

Encompassing new liquids, new packaging and new flavours, coupled with a new creative identity and a significant programme of marketing support, the brand will look, taste and communicate differently.

After extensive consumer research giving comprehensive insight into key drivers for today’s flavoured cider drinkers, family-owned Brothers Drinks Co. will relaunch its flagship cider brand in February, with new packs appearing on-shelf initially in Booker, One Stop, Tesco, and Morrisons before rolling into Asda from mid-April.

With demand growing following the brand’s debut appearance at the now legendary B-Bar at Glastonbury Festival in 1995, Brothers introduced the UK’s first-ever flavoured cider. Since those category-pioneering days, Brothers Cider has built its success on developing unique and eye-catching flavour combinations, and frequently refreshing its range with innovative additions.

As the fruit-flavoured cider category has since evolved significantly and reflecting changing consumer preferences, Brothers Cider will now focus on four key, permanent flavours in its ambition to reignite the fruit cider category:

• App-Solutely Pear-fect – a refreshing apple and pear cider that’s a sip of pure orchard goodness
• Un-Berrylievable – crisp apples dance with juicy blackberries and raspberries in a flavoursome fusion that will tickle tastebuds
• Best of the Zest– this orange and lemon combination will awaken senses and deliver a surprise in every sip
• Berry Sub-Lime– this playful union of tangylime and refreshing raspberry will set taste buds giggling

Brothers Drinks Co said the new range of recognisable flavours presented in enticing new combinations successfully embodies both the brand’s heritage in interesting flavour development and the consumer’s need for familiar, appealing products which really deliver refreshment.

Drawing on key insights gleaned from bespoke category research, Brothers Cider’s all-new flavours will benefit from a transformative pack redesign which will better communicate the brand’s free-spirited personality.

The bold and disruptive new look breaks category norms, using playful illustrations and vibrant real fruit depictions on clean, white cans. Prominent text re-enforces the brand’s Somerset home and makes clear that the products use all-natural flavours. Mirroring both consumer preferences and environmental benefits, all new take home variants will be available in cans only.

All flavours will be sold as single 500ml regular format cans, single 330ml sleek-style cans and 6 x 330ml sleek-can multipacks.

To match the brand’s new positioning targeting consumers seeking refreshing, sessionable fruit-flavoured ciders, three of the four relaunched Brothers Cider products will be available at the new level of 3.4% ABV. In a nod to the brand’s original Glastonbury Festival cider, the App-Solutely Pear-fect variant will be offered at 7.0% ABV, aligning it to comparable apple and pear flavour competitors and representing great value for money to shoppers.

Made in Shepton Mallet from apples grown in orchards only a few miles from the Showerings Cider Mill, one of the largest cider plants in the UK, aside from being both sessionable and refreshing, the new liquids have a much-reduced sugar content, with the natural fruit flavours providing all the appropriate sweetness; the recipes contain no added colours or artificial flavours, and are vegan-friendly and gluten-free.

To support the relaunch, a major campaign of consumer activity will commence in May and run throughout the summer. The marketing package will comprise TV sponsorship, video on demand, festival activation, consumer PR, significant in-store activity and a major social media campaign.

“With new liquids, new packaging, new flavours and a new positioning, we’re being bold and disruptive to create a relevant and credible offering for today’s cider drinkers. We’re really playing up our British provenance; we’re really going to be showcasing our honest company and brand values; and we’re focusing in on light, refreshing, natural products and shoppers in independents are really going to sit up and noticewhat Brothers Cider stands for,” Nicola Randall, head of marketing, Brothers Drinks Co., said.

“As a company, we’re family-owned and agile and, as a brand, Brothers Cider is independent and natural; it’s the free-spirited fruit cider and it does things differently. We’ve put the consumer at the very heart of the relaunch and we’re confident that our approach as a seriously unserious cider is going to truly resonate and have huge appeal and prove a big success for both depots and retailers.”