How Garage Beer is building its brand with no-holds-barred marketing

Storage Beer has been on a tear because it was relaunched at the start of 2023 by CEO Andy Sauer. Final summer season noticed the model carry on Jason and Travis Kelce as buyers, companions, homeowners and operators whereas gross sales volumes have grown over 460% within the final 52 weeks, per IRI information shared with Advertising Dive.

The football-playing Kelce brothers, who double as media stars and promoting darlings, have rapidly change into the face of Storage Beer, particularly Jason, who retired from the NFL in 2024 and pivoted to a profession in saying.

In April, Jason starred in “Brewmite,” a humorous little bit of long-form content material from Storage Beer that reimagined the martial arts movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s for the world of beer. Constructing on the success of the marketing campaign, the brewer not too long ago launched a second installment of “Brewmite,” this time welcoming Travis and UFC legend Chuck Liddell to the dojo.

“Brewmite II” consists of social and digital content material, limited-edition merchandise (together with a throwback VHS tape) and even a movie premiere-styled launch social gathering. The trouble demonstrates how Storage Beer is using each its well-known co-owners and a no-holds-barred strategy to advertising to kind a extra genuine reference to its audience, a technique harking back to latest disruptor success tales from Liquid Demise and Dr. Squatch.

“The model stands by itself at this level, from a tone of voice and an aesthetic,” stated Storage Beer Chief Artistic Officer Corey Smale. “We have already got a fairly good hearth going, after which the Kelces again up a tank of gasoline on it.”

Understanding audiences

Storage Beer’s newest “Brewmite” comes because the model sees extra mileage to derive from the idea. Plus, capturing round Travis’ schedule is all the time difficult, because the 35-year-old prepares for the NFL season, amongst different commitments. However the bigger effort additionally demonstrates how Storage Beer’s advertising is evolving, even when a few of its concepts start as riffs between Jason and the model’s staff.

“The truth that it will probably go from there to being a movie and an precise occasion with a VHS tape is a testomony to our staff. We’re nonetheless a really, very small model and staff, however the those that we’ve are all the time doing lots of stuff,” Smale defined. “We all the time wish to tie [together] actual life and on-line as a lot as attainable.”

Smale attributes the resonance of Storage Beer’s model advertising to being one with its viewers, with shared pursuits round martial arts parodies, beer-filled waterbeds and even professional wrestling. Throughout his time as model director at Pabst Blue Ribbon, Smale helped embed the model in professional wrestling, together with working TV advertisements and sponsoring a podcast about wrestling toys. When the podcast’s take care of PBR ended, it tapped Storage Beer as a sponsor — a transfer Smale stated speaks to the ability of micro area of interest pursuits.

“I feel it’s cool to indicate audiences, ‘Dude, we’re you,’” Smale stated. “That’s exhausting to drag off, except you actually are a fan.”

Small model, area of interest pursuits

The podcast partnership has led to further content material and model alternatives, like sponsoring a world title match and that includes a green-haired wrestler in a marketing campaign video across the brewer’s green-canned lime beer. For a small model like Storage Beer, advertising requires agility and ease, generally with out the contracts required by huge manufacturers and influencers.

“It is a bit bit out of necessity,” Smale stated. “I don’t have cash to sponsor WWE or AEW [All Elite Wrestling], however I understand how to get into part of that world and develop it.”

As Storage Beer expands, so does its want to maneuver into different cultural cul de sacs. The corporate on Aug. 11 introduced a partnership with illustrator Tim Jacobus — finest recognized for his iconic “Goosebumps” covers — for a Halloween-themed effort, “Storage Concern.”

The trouble spans packaging (that includes Jason alongside a personality resembling an eponymous horror icon), an grownup comedian guide restricted to 100 copies, a forthcoming animated quick and a pop-up at a haunted home in St. Louis, Missouri. Advertising supplies place “Storage Concern” as serving to customers who’re “apprehensive about having to ingest pumpkin beer this fall” and “So good, it’s actually placing worry into the seltzer trade.”

That kind of horror-themed, aggressive advertising remembers the success of Liquid Demise, a model Smale labored on for a 12 months at company Get together Land.

“What Liquid Demise has accomplished can be a case research for generations,” Smale stated. “That we will even be talked about in the identical [breath], that’s so cool for me.”