Chinese Beer Company's UK Distributor Beginning Large-Scale Push During Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration#
Tsingtao, China's oldest and most successful brewery, has announced that it will invest in Chinese New Year activities in London, Liverpool and Birmingham, England, with other events planned through the remainder of 2010. Although Tsingtao is already pretty well-known outside of China, the company appears to be in the early stages of a large-scale promotional campaign of which these Chinatown marketing efforts are just one part.
Some of this year's events, like Tsingtao's "Legacy of Taste" culinary competition, have been done in previous years, but the specific targeting of Chinatowns for Chinese New Year is a new strategy.
As TalkingRetail writes today, Tsingtao plans to specifically target the Chinese community in the UK this year, sponsoring not only the installation of Tsingtao Chinese lanterns in Chinatowns throughout England, but also Dragon Boat and culinary events later in the year.
Tsingtao is synonymous with Chinese culture and enjoys distribution in the majority of UK Chinese restaurants. With a fantastic heritage and a diversity of Chinese food available, Tsingtao plans to extend the Chinese food and culture message in the UK, by enlisting the help of Celebrity Chef, Ching He-Huan in 2010, as well as working with the Legacy of Taste 2009 winners to create a recipe book.
Although this apparent re-branding effort is in its earliest stages, comments by Nigel Tarn, Senior Brand Manager for Tsingtao, suggest that the company is going to leverage their use of Laoshan spring water (purportedly some of China's purest water) from Qingdao as a selling point. Though they've promoted the quality of the water used in the brewing process within the mainland China market for years, this will be the first time Tsingtao will do so in a foreign market. Said Tarn,
"At a time when many brewers are reviewing their operations and how they produce their products including brewing international beers in the UK; Tsingtao is firmly committed to brewing its product only in China using its unique water, ingredients and process that creates a distinctive product...We are looking forward to reinforcing Tsingtao's Chinese heritage in 2010."