The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2016–2017
Brewtroleum: DB Export turns brewing yeast into car fuel — sales +10%, Grand Effie
DB Export made a biofuel from leftover brewing yeast, sold it at 62 New Zealand stations, and told men to drink beer and save the entire world.
DB Breweries (DB Export)
What it had to solve
DB Export, a mainstream New Zealand beer, was losing young men to craft and premium brands while the beer category fell 6% a year. The brand brief called for growing Export-family sales 5% against that decline and rebuilding perceptions — without shouting louder than everyone else.
How it works
New Zealand's mainstream beer market was falling 6% a year while craft and premium brands pulled young men away. DB Export and Colenso BBDO answered with a product, not a pitch: Brewtroleum, a biofuel refined from the yeast left over after brewing, blended at 10% ethanol with 98-octane petrol and sold through 62 Gull petrol stations nationwide.
The campaign turned consumption into purpose. Each batch turned 58,000 tonnes of yeast slurry into 300,000 litres of fuel that emitted 8% less carbon than regular petrol, so the call to action — 'drink DB Export and save the entire world' — was literally true. A fully rebranded flagship station in Auckland drew kilometre-long queues on launch day, and a branded tanker toured the country delivering fuel.
It worked commercially: DB Export sales rose 10% in a market falling 6%, and every sales and brand objective in the brief was met. Brewtroleum took the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes 2016, six trophies including Grand at the 2016 Effie Awards New Zealand, and five more including Grand at the 2017 APAC Effie Awards.
Why it lands
- It made the brand's problem — declining beer sales — into the planet's solution, so commercial interest and purpose were the same sentence.
- The biofuel was real and on sale at 62 stations; the proof lived in the product, not in the advertising.
- It gave a self-indulgent act a noble frame, which research showed the target men actually wanted.
- The functional innovation was itself the media: forecourts, a branded tanker and queues became earned coverage.
What it did
DB Export sales rose 10% while the market fell 6%, and the campaign beat every sales and brand objective in the brief. It won the Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix 2016, six trophies including Grand at the 2016 Effie Awards New Zealand, and five more including Grand at the 2017 APAC Effie Awards.
What you can take
Give the consumer a role in something bigger than the product. Brewtroleum didn't ask men to buy better beer; it made drinking beer an act of environmental heroism, with the real biofuel as proof.
Since then
Brewtroleum launched DB Export's 'Made By Doing' platform, which kept turning beer consumption into environmental acts: the next chapter converted empty beer bottles back into sand for construction, and a third batch of Brewtroleum reached Gull stations in late 2017. Overseas brewers, including one in Mexico, contacted DB for advice on the process. The campaign remains among the most awarded New Zealand work of its era and is credited with reversing the brand's decline.
Sources
- Winner Spotlight: DB Breweries & Colenso BBDO, 'Brewtroleum'
- 2017 Winners — Brewtroleum
- Cannes 2016: Car fuel made from beer wins Outdoor Grand Prix
- Brewtroleum idea's a gas
- Year in Review: 10 Most Creative Campaigns
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