Natural Light Brand Repositioning

Natural Light was the 8th highest selling beer in the country in 2023, but suffered from perceptions about who drank it most: college frat boys and stuck-in-their-ways Southern white men.

As the brand marketing team was rolling out new packaging, they asked my team to support the launch by updating the positioning and brand book so it could appeal to a wider audience.

We set out to the coastal Carolinas and interviewed loyal Natty drinkers on boats, in bars, and all other floatation devices we could find them on to better understand the values we could build a more universal brand on top of. Underneath all of the mullets and lower back tattoos was an ethos to do what brings you joy, no matter what others think.

That became the foundation for repositioning the brand, a new tagline (“Act Natural”) and building a new brand book that any trade team or marketer could pick up and understand what made Natural Light special.

ABI’s feedback was resoundingly positive - the CMO called it “the best brand book he’s ever seen” and it is still passed around marketing teams across the organization. It didn’t hurt that we turned the entire book into a drinking game either.