.jpg "Speight's Wins 2026 Campaign of the Year at Cartology Awards")
Congratulations to Speight's who was named the 2026 Campaign of the Year at the Cartology Awards last week. Lion, Woolworths New Zealand and Cartology celebrated Speight's 150th birthday campaign which more than doubled sales of participating products in a declining category. Find out more about the winning campaign in the case study below
Speight's Gold Medal Ale is New Zealand's oldest surviving beer brand. To mark its 150th anniversary, Lion partnered with Woolworths and its retail media business Cartology to turn a heritage milestone into a reason for shoppers to reach for something new. The campaign has since been named 2026 Campaign of the Year.
|
The challenge Mainstream full-strength beer has been in decline across New Zealand, and price promotions alone weren't going to turn that around. Lion needed to break shoppers' routine habits and give them a reason to choose Speight's.
The campaign had four objectives:
|
|
The approach
With mainstream beer declining across the category, Lion needed a strategy beyond price promotions to reignite demand. Mainstream drinkers were the key growth segment, and Speight's 150th anniversary offered a heritage story that could turn category fatigue into a celebration.
Instead of a traditional briefing model, Lion, Woolworths and Cartology worked cross-functionally to co-create a unified commercial and media strategy, focused on reversing category decline through customer trial. It came together in
three parts.
A unified strategic partnership. Joint alignment connected retail media with commercial strategy and secured an exclusive, first-to-market promotional space. This gave Speight's strong in-store visibility at the points where shoppers' routines could be interrupted.
Connected omnichannel activation. The 'Golden Cans' creative linked online discovery with in-store media, acting as the final conversion trigger at the moment of choice.
Precision digital targeting. Cartology activated first-party search intent across 66 beer search terms, reaching high-intent shoppers, low-carb buyers and lapsed brand loyalists as they built their online baskets.
The results
The campaign more than doubled sales of participating products and brought thousands of new and returning shoppers
to the brand. The campaign was named 2026 Campaign of the Year and also won Best Omnichannel Campaign (under $100k).
| Measure | Result |
|
Sales growth, participating products (year on year) |
+123% |
|
Speight's Summit Ultra sales (year on year) |
+145% |
|
Speight's total market share (year on year) |
+5% |
|
New or reactivated customers |
6,400+ (46% of all campaign buyers) |
|
Return on investment |
3:1 |
Read the full case study from Cartology: Speight's 150th Birthday Campaign.
Comments