Rap instead of Tradition: Breweries' Fight for the Young Target Group

The dramatic brewery dying out

The German brewing landscape is in a deep crisis. Rising production costs for energy and raw materials, combined with a persistent decline in consumption, are driving more and more traditional businesses, some centuries old, into insolvency. This rampant brewery dying out forces the industry to radically rethink, because especially the core target group of 18 to 30-year-olds is increasingly disappearing as a reliable buyer for classic brewing products.

Brand coupling as a survival strategy

Companies like Schneider Weisse from Kelheim in Lower Bavaria are therefore focusing on personality cult instead of classic product advertising. To reach the young target group again, the family brewery is cooperating with 27-year-old Timo Grabinger. The musician from the Schwandorf district of Büchelkühn in the Upper Palatinate, who comes from a family of restaurateurs, operates under the pseudonym Tream as a Schlager rapper. Grabinger achieved his commercial breakthrough in 2022 with the title "Lebenslang" and recently further increased his reach by participating in the Vox show "Sing meinen Song".

Exclusive distribution instead of widespread coverage

The collaboration with brewmaster Josef Lechner resulted in an unfiltered wheat beer with a distinctive orange note. The marketing strategy for the sales launch on Thursday, July 9th, deliberately refrains from broad supply to classic beverage retailers. Instead, distribution is drastically reduced: The product will be offered nationwide exclusively in Kaufland supermarket branches and at sales stands on the musician's open-air tour. Given the enormous appeal of the artist in precisely the targeted age group and the clever artificial scarcity created by exclusive distribution, the chances are very good that this unconventional project will be crowned with success.