Castle Lager to embrace township economy in new brand positioning

These elements will be supported with a new look and feel (visual identity), which has been launched and consumers will start to see this coming to life in the upcoming weeks on digital and trade.

In the coming weeks and throughout the year, we will also be rolling out localised murals, point-of-sale items and beautiful merchandise which are vibrant and representative of the beauty of our Kasi’s. Then, Castle Lager will continue to focus on activities that pay tribute to the communities that make South Africa great, through using our sports sponsorships and other exciting initiatives.

Tell us more about the new TVC?

Our new TVC really brings to life the power of our communities to drive us as South Africa forward. We have seen in many instances throughout our history that it is within our communities that we find hope and lift each other up. Our TVC is a representation of the characteristics of being South African, courageous optimism, resilience and Ubuntu.

We see this as we go through the narrative of Temba’s bar having an electrical fault and a fire starting, to the point where his community are the ones who begin the rebuilding process and encourage action to help restore what they all have lost. In the end, we see everyone in the newly built Kwa Mahlangu bar after having come together to make it happen. As a brand, Castle Lager wants to celebrate our communities as these characteristics are inherent in every one of them, every day they inspire actions that create hope for a better South Africa.

Who was all involved in the new TVC? From the brief, to the creative process, to production, etc.

Throughout the process of unpacking this new direction and journey for Castle, we have placed the consumer at the centre. At every step of the process, we ensured to take the work to our people and get their feedback. We worked closely with our research partners, Culture Foundry & KLA and creative partners, Ogilvy & Sunshine Gun to make sure that we were speaking to South Africans in a way they can relate to and resonate with. We worked with Egg Films and our very talented director Lebogang Rasethaba.

When it came to shooting our new TVC, with every line in the script, we built and worked with our cast, who come from communities all around South Africa, to ensure that we were bringing our message to life in a real and authentic way.

The brand has also played its part by supporting homegrown talent. Can you tell us about any upcoming initiatives?

We have some really exciting initiatives coming up this year. The first is that we are looking at ways to ensure that every single service we procure is local.

Later this year we will be launching a campaign to support the growth of our Kasi businesses, which are fundamental to the revival of our economy after the last two years. We will be doing this by supporting local businesses by leveraging our brand collateral. We know that when the Kasi economy grows, South Africa grows but many of these Kasi businesses are unknown to a wider audience or still growing their businesses. We want to play a role in showcasing them and sharing their expertise with the rest of South Africa.

Throughout the year we are also going to partner with local content creators to help bring to life the stories and essence of their Kasi’s. We want to showcase the beauty of our communities through art, dance, poetry and music – we will use these local content creators to do this in their own expression.

We have also started to develop our localised murals which can be found in a number of our Kasi’s throughout South Africa. In order to localise these murals and bring to life the essence of these individual communities, we are working with street artists from these Kasi’s to interpret and create their expression of their community and what makes it so special.