MANAGING
     Marketing Molson gives kick to stale brand The company launched a new Export
     campaign to try to reposition the 95-year-old ale
     Wednesday, September 2, 1998
     By John Heinzl

     When Molson Export's market share was slipping in the early nineties, the beer aimed at
     regular guys aired a telling commercial. The 1993 spot showed a fortyish bartender in a
     black vest and denim shirt -- an Export loyalist, no doubt -- locking up long after last call.

     The voice-over declared: "It's amazing all the different beers there are these days -- lights,
     draughts, cold-filtereds, drys. Trends, yeah, people try 'em. And they usually come back.
     Yup, they come back."

     The bartender must be getting tired of waiting.

     Export, Molson Breweries' oldest beer, used to be its top seller, a rank it held until the
     early eighties. But the ale, pitched as the choice of men with stubble, has struggled to find
     its way in recent years amid a crush of new brands and a trend to lighter-tasting lagers.

     It is now the No. 3 brand at Molson, behind flagship Canadian and No. 2 Coors Light,
     which the company brews in Canada. "We got to the point where two or three years ago
     there were not a lot of new drinkers embracing [Export]," says Stewart Priddle, brand
     manager at Toronto-based Molson.

     Can an old beer get a new life? Molson thinks so. Last month, it launched a marketing
     campaign in Ontario, one of Export's principal stomping grounds, to reposition the
     95-year-old brand to appeal to a wider audience -- not just guys who drive trucks and cut
     wood.

     The campaign, whose tagline is "history in the making," is a departure from Export's
     traditional male-oriented advertising. The first commercial, in black and white, depicts a
     victory celebration in a community hall at the end of the Second World War. The ad is
     remarkable for a couple of reasons. It features women prominently, and the men are
     engaged in an uncharacteristic activity for an Export spot: they are dancing to swing music.

     Until now, men in Export ads didn't dance. They built skyscrapers (1965), sawed wood
     (1967), sat on the porch (1973), scratched their beards at the cottage (1977), sawed
     more wood (1982), pried stumps out of the ground (1986) and restored vintage cars
     (1994). When they opened their mouths, they uttered phrases such as "I'm a stand-up guy"
     (1996).

     It was, Molson officials decided, time to move on.

     When it ditched the tired guy's-guy formula, the unit of Molson Cos. Ltd. of Toronto held
     focus groups to come up with a fresh marketing angle. A theme emerged from the sessions:
     Consumers were looking for brands they could trust to counter the cranked-up pace of life
     in the nineties.

     Molson Breweries seized upon the notion of promoting Export's rich heritage. The
     approach was particularly well-suited to Export, which was first brewed in 1903. (Many
     other mainstream brands, such as Canadian and Labatt Blue, didn't come along until the
     fifties.)

     Using swing music in the commercial was a natural. It not only reminds older consumers of
     Export's longevity, it plays to younger drinkers who are being swept up by the swing and
     cigar revival.

     To be sure, Molson isn't the first marketer to play the nostalgia card. KFC recently
     brought back Colonel Sanders, Coca-Cola revived its contoured bottle, and Volkswagen
     relaunched the Beetle. "There does seem to be a need and a desire for brands that have
     stood the test of time," Mr. Priddle says.

     Television commercials are only part of the new Export campaign. Other elements include
     billboards depicting old labels, and ads in bars. In keeping with its "history in the making"
     slogan, Molson is negotiating a marketing deal to coincide with the Toronto Maple Leafs'
     exit from Maple Leaf Gardens this season and the opening of the new Air Canada Centre
     in Toronto.

     Export, which is sold primarily in Ontario and Quebec, is also hoping to attract new
     drinkers in Western Canada. The brand is being test-marketed there and will launch on a
     wider scale if results warrant.

     Repositioning Export could be a tall order, particularly because the brand's image is so
     entrenched in consumers' psyches. Even people involved in the project admit it will be a
     challenge to shift attitudes.

     "The longer you've been around, the more chance you've had to gain a general perception
     in the public's eye, one way or the other," says Scott Griffith, account supervisor at
     Molson's ad agency, MacLaren McCann Canada Inc. in Toronto. "Any sort of
     repositioning, no matter how radical or how subtle, is always a bit of a challenge . . ."

     Will it work? Jim Durran, an analyst with Lévesque Beaubien Geoffrion in Toronto, says
     reviving Export is a long-term exercise. To be successful, Molson will have to keep
     hammering away with advertising. He points to another old Molson brand, Black Label,
     which came into fashion a few years ago after a marketing blitz only to fade into obscurity
     when the ads let up.

     "I don't think the Export image has been so tarnished that it's something that can't be
     resuscitated," Mr. Durran says. But "they're going to have to be patient. It's a slow
     process."