How Lucky Saint Built a Brand around Nuns, Religious Cues and Mental Health Advocacy to Take a #1 position in the £60M Non-Alcoholic Beer Category in just 6 Years

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

Lucky Saint is an irreverent non-alcoholic beer brand building a leading position in a £60M industry by taking a stance on what they’re for, doubling down on consistency, and taking creative risks to build memories and sell buzz-free beer to drinkers

Who will love this

• Tee-totallers

• Folks who appreciate consistency

• Non-alcoholic brand-hawks

• Lapsed church-goers (or church-goers with a sense of humor)

Today

Hello!

One of the coolest things about the internet that I will never get over is being able to meet people with shared interests that live on opposite sides of the world. I had the pleasure of meeting Simon & Julie from Like the Wind, a gorgeously crafted indie running mag, while they were in town this week in Seattle.

Today’s brand was inspired by this LinkedIn post by Vikki Ross, who spotted a Lucky Saint ad in the wild on the Tube. It’s pretty rare to find a brand that’s as clear on who they are, are as buttoned-up on consistency, and who’s success hasn’t scared them into eliminating all creative risk-taking.

Lucky Saint are:

• 🏆 UK’s #1 dedicated alcohol free beer brand

• 💰 Disrupting a £60M pound category

• 👯 A masterclass in consistency

• 🧱 Building not just a brand, but a category

• 🍻 Running a pub as a pilot (before you ask, yes, they do serve alcoholic beers!)

• 🧠 Leading a mental health initiative for hospitality workers

Is this a beer brand…or the way business should be done!? Above all, Lucky Saint are building a coherent, consistent, and creatively bold brand that’s punching well above it’s weight to disrupt a stale category.

And the people said amen!

Let’s dive in.

How to create a category

1️⃣ Position to own the category (not just compete)

One of the signals that a brand is strong? It flies in the face of the logic of its competitors and breaks the central rules of the category. But you have to know the rules to break them, and choose when to break them, strategically.

Category creating brands don’t happen on accident. It requires a lot of work up front to be clear about what you’re building and who you’re for. Lucky Saint’s founder, Luke, built the business with two questions in mind:

• Is it possible to brew a beer that’s good enough to bring me and others into the category?

• Is it possible to build a brand that will make people feel positive about that?

That in turn, forms the product & brand brief:

• Get people to believe that NA beer could taste as good as regular beer ➡️ R&D, Harness attention, demonstrate quality

• Get Lucky Saint stocked in pubs ➡️ Demonstrate quality, DTC sales

• Build positive perception & goodwill ➡️ B Corp, mental health advocacy program for pub workers

But here’s what I want to highlight to readers: on their first crack at Lucky Saint’s brand, the original concept was “not like other beers.” The problem with this is that it only works in the short term: when other brands come onto the scene

Lucky Saint smashes the rules of its category (blokey, years of heritage or punk-rock coded brands, ignoring the effects of drinking on mental health) and builds its position through consistent application of its positioning.

2️⃣ Consistency, consistency, consistency

The real trick with positioning is to apply it without exception.

If a brand is the promise you make to people, the measure of consistency is how often you keep your brand promise across your experience. When we say ‘consistency,’ though, what do we mean? Consistency refers to what marketing researchers call distinctive brand assets (think the golden arches, Coca-Cola red, KFC’s Colonel) - a non-name trigger that brings a brand to mind.

TLDR: If you’re changing the things you want people to associate with your brand, you make it harder for people to remember you.

As a brand manager, a lot of things are out of your control. Consistency is! We love to see it.

Lucky Saint’s Distinctive Brand Assets

• Blue

• Praying hands / nun

• Tongue-in-cheek religious references

Where we See Lucky Saint’s Consistency

Legit, everywhere. A quick look across its website, advertising, social media, rewards and mental health programs, Lucky Saint is building a consistent identity. The larger an organization gets, the harder this is to do.

Why do we care about consistency and distinctive brand assets? Brands with the strongest assets are on average 52% more ‘salient’ than their rivals – in other words, they are much more likely to spring to mind when consumers are shopping within the category. There’s also a concept called fluent devices, which are devices used in long-running campaigns, sort of like a distinctive brand asset with a shorter shelf life.

3️⃣ Brand Actions to Build Advocates

One of the most underrated brand hacks is to demonstrate your point of view on the world to the people who would be most likely to share that point of view (that’s how I define brand action). This has to be natural fit, and a genuine commitment, otherwise it’ll be quickly sniffed out as token.

Lucky Saint run Mental Health First Aid Training for hospitality staff. What I like about this initiative is that it’s naturally aligned with the brand (mental health) it’s serving a need (supporting the hospitality industry).

I don’t have data to support Lucky Saint’s work here and how it ties into their business objectives but I’d be surprised if it didn’t turn quite a few hospitality workers (and people who could be influential in getting Lucky Saint into pubs) into brand advocates.

Three things to love & learn from 📚

1️⃣ Find the million dollar question. For Lucky Saint, it was “is it possible to build a brand that makes people feel good about drinking an NA beer?” What’s yours? I guarantee you this will clarify your positioning.

2️⃣ Audit your brand for consistency. Lucky Saint’s experience from ads to website to emails is pitch perfect. Tip: pretend you’ve never heard of your brand - walk through from ads to landing pages to churn emails and ask: is brand voice, identity and personality the same from start to finish? If not, now you’ve got a list of things to throw onto your backlog.

3️⃣ Put your money where your mouth is. Strategy is the art of sacrifice, brand strategy gives you direction on what you’re willing to sacrifice for. Ask: What do we value and how can we demonstrate that in a way that will signal commitment to our positioning?

Things on my mind this week & some qs for you

Things I’m mulling over.

• The rise of brands using ‘close stories’ on IG as a membership benefit (A24, Bandit). Do you pay for any memberships or newsletters that grant you close friends access?

• When, exactly, Nike running lost its way? (I just finished this book on what looks like a big doping cover up)

• This piece on how Gen-Z broke the marketing funnel. I have some feelings about this one. Maybe I’ll share them. Shameless plug 🔌: click here to follow me on LinkedIn if you want my hot takes on the marketing industry’s hot takes.

That’s all! ✌️ Thanks for your time.

Amanda

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