But as Reeb also found, familiarity given a new twist can resonate with a younger target segment.
brand promise backed by its lighter brew that resonated with Shanghai's younger beer drinkers.
Next to Suntory, Reeb's image began looking decidedly outdated and its once-dominant share of throat tumbled. At one point, Reeb's share is estimated to have fallen to well below 30 per cent as Suntory emerged as the clear market leader four years after its Shanghai launch. What helped Suntory was the lighter beer it created for the market, the result of research, which found that consumers preferred a light tipple that was close to the consistency of water.
On top of this, Suntory reformed its distribution network, which included creating a network of 70 secondary wholesalers to sell directly to retailers, and mounted a well-funded advertising campaign that targeted younger Shanghainese.
These efforts propelled Suntory to the top of the beer league, earning it more than 35 per cent market share last year by some estimates.
Against this backdrop, Reeb, part of the Asia Pacific Breweries group, needed to contemporise its image fast to appeal to younger beer drinkers.
Early last year, it hired Bates China for the makeover. When the agency took on the assignment, its regional director for Greater China, Barry Leung, recalls: "Reeb was hanging on to targets, mostly in their forties, and suffered alienation from today's youth.
This alienation not only led younger drinkers to see Reeb as their fathers' drink, but to eventually switch to Suntory.
But younger drinkers are the ones propelling the growth of beer consumption, as a Universal McCann's Media in Mind study has found. According to the study, male drinkers between 26 and 40 years accounted for close to 40 per cent, the biggest segment by far. But reaching male beer drinkers is far from easy. While consumption of various media, including television and newspapers, is high, advertising in most mainstream media is not watched or read, the study found.
Drawing on its own consumer insights, Bates discovered some interesting pointers for the way ahead in Reeb's makeover. Firstly, Bates found that Reeb's heritage lay in its history. "Clearly a double-edged sword - familiar yet aging,
says Leung. Secondly, being Shanghainese means embracing news ideas, changes and challenges as the city has done over the last two decades.
"The twist in the strategy was to find an angle that would enable the youth to establish an empathy with Reeb without talking about the brand's history."
From this came the new positioning - "Reeb, the essence of being Shanghainese
- and a 60-second TV commercial and jingle "New Reeb for a new Shanghai".
The jingle, an unabashed paean on the "pride in being Shanghainese", plays against visuals showing the city's emergence as China's economic powerhouse.
More jingoistic than lyrical, lines such as "storming past Hong Kong and Taiwan ... no-one better understands the sweetness of success, out with the old, in with the new
obviously touched a nerve in Shanghai as it played in taxis, shops and even karaoke parlours. According to Leung, Reeb's campaign and jingle resonated with Shanghai's young and in doing so became "their beer".
That the strategy worked this well in Shanghai has much to do with Shanghainese pride in themselves and their city. "Shanghainese are rather proud of their city's ability to be at the leading edge of locally manufactured goods. They tend to be suspicious about the quality of products that have been manufactured elsewhere in China,
says Darryl Andrew, executive director of Asia Market Intelligence. "It is a well-thought through strategy of Bates to reposition the brand in this way as it also links the brand to the economic success that the city and its inhabitants are enjoying.
"However, I would say this is more about being parochial rather than being patriotic."
Few expect Suntory to take Reeb's return lying down. Early this year, Suntory appointed Maximize to sharpen its media planning. Andrew believes there is "still a lot of mileage to be gained from Suntory's Japanese heritage".
"If I were Suntory and Reeb, I would also be paying attention to brands like Budweiser, Carlsberg and Heineken,
he says. "Their marketing pedigree is well-known, furthermore, the proprietary research we conducted in China late last year show that three out of 10 beer drinkers in the main cities are classified as 'dynamic performers'.
In plain speak, it means they like the brand now and are willing to give more of their beer money to these brands in the future. Andrew adds: "These brands will grow because consumers have strong affinity to them."
