Alcohol Industry Solidifies Leading Position Through Music Festivals

OB Beer Resumes Events After 3 Years with Endemic
HiteJinro Differentiates with Soju Music Festival

OB Beer and Hite Jinro, the two major domestic liquor companies, are strengthening the leading position of their flagship products through large-scale music festivals. As this is the first summer after the endemic phase, with high demand for face-to-face performances and events, their strategy is to maximize brand exposure and firmly establish themselves as the market's representative products.

According to the liquor industry on the 12th, OB Beer will hold the ‘2023 Kas Cool Festival’ at Seoul Land on the 19th. This is the first time in three years since 2020 that OB Beer is directly hosting a music festival.

OB Beer is preparing this event in collaboration with the local production company of Thailand’s representative water festival, ‘Songkran.’ They plan to enhance the quality of the performance with various special effects, such as dyeing the audience’s clothing with the blue color symbolizing the Cass brand using colored water made from water and edible pigments. In addition to the performance, they will operate various consumer participation programs such as making personalized Cass goods and a giant Cass can photo zone, and set up a brand zone where attendees can experience the summer limited product ‘Cass Lemon Squeeze’ to strengthen contact points with the audience.

OB Beer is fully committed to peak season marketing by continuously sponsoring various music events this summer. In this month alone, after sponsoring the ‘Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival’ from the 4th to the 6th, they will also participate as a sponsor in the ‘Poseidon Water Music Festival’ held in Gwangju on the 12th. This is interpreted as an effort to solidify Cass’s leading position in the market amid the competitor Hite Jinro strengthening its market approach with dual brands such as the existing ‘Terra’ and the new product ‘Kelly.’ An OB Beer official explained, “This summer, with the endemic allowing us to increase contact with consumers for the first time in three years, we will focus more on offline marketing and aim to maximize brand promotion and sales promotion effects through these expected outcomes.”

Hite Jinro will also hold the ‘2023 Islive Festival’ at Jarasum in Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi Province, on the 2nd of next month, led by ‘Chamisul,’ the number one product in the domestic soju market. While Hite Jinro is a challenger aiming to reclaim the lead in the beer market, it must defend its throne in the soju market. Although it holds over 60% market share in soju with Chamisul and Jinro, Lotte Chilsung Beverage’s ‘Cheoeumcheoreom Saero,’ launched last year, is leading the zero-soju trend and gradually narrowing the gap, making the situation uncertain.

Hite Jinro emphasizes that it is the only soju music festival in Korea as a point of differentiation. They plan to expand the number of food and dessert booths more than before, preparing it as a ‘festival you go to eat.’ Through this, they aim to increase loyalty among existing fans and attract new consumers with various participatory programs such as Isul Pocha.

The reason why the two major liquor companies are competing to hold and sponsor large-scale music festivals is ultimately to expand contact points with consumers and increase brand awareness and intimacy. An industry insider explained, “Since liquor is a consumer good, product exposure to the public is most important. Creating an environment with high exposure to the brand allows more experiences of drinking and trying the related products, which can increase intimacy with the product.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.