When Foster’s and Kronenbourg Went Full Guinness With In-Can Widgets
Nothing tops a well-executed draft pour of Guinness, but the folks at St. James’s Gate Brewery have done the work to give their fans a close-to-pub experience at home with Guinness Draught in cans. And of course, said experience wouldn’t be the same without the brand’s patented widget. What’s essentially a pierced ping pong ball fills up with beer on the canning line, and when the can is eventually cracked, the pressure shift causes the ball to spurt out its contents, thus agitating the nitrogenated stout and causing it to foam up.
It’s an invention so beloved that in a 2004 poll, the people of Ireland cheekily crowned the Guinness widget the greatest technological achievement of the preceding 40 years. It’s also so beloved that it’s served as inspiration for other beer brands to try and implement widgets of their own — namely Foster’s and Kronenbourg.
In early 2008, the parent company behind both beer brands, Scottish & Newcastle UK (S&N UK), announced that it would release versions of Foster’s lager and Kronenbourg 1664 with in-can widgets. According to retailer news outlet Talking Retail, the company launched the new products to “add value and excitement to the lager category by meeting the trend to offer ‘pub quality at home’ which was revealed following research carried out by the brewer.”
The company noted that the widgets were different from those used by Guinness, claiming that theirs were tailored in size, shape, and format to accommodate lager’s more carbonated liquid. S&N UK also disclosed that the widgets would be added to Foster’s and Kronenbourg’s existing formulas without any nitrogen — unlike Guinness. Allegedly, the widgets released a surge of tiny bubbles upon cracking the cans, resulting in a smoother mouthfeel than their non-widgetized counterparts.
Launch day came in early April with the beers labelled as “Foster’s In-Can Scuba” and “Kronenbourg 1664 Dynamo Système,” both of which S&N UK priced at a slightly higher premium than the brands’ standard offerings. The company also invested 12 million pounds (roughly $16 million) in ad campaigns for the products, which included a TV snippet for Kronenbourg and print advertisements for Foster’s. Additionally, S&N UK kicked off a branded glassware promo in August 2008 for both beers, giving out free glasses to the first 250,000 customers who purchased a 4-pack of either Foster’s In-Can Scuba or Kronenbourg 1664 Dynamo Système.
According to a BBC article from October 2008, S&N UK claimed that the new products “exceeded expectations” since their initial launch. However, the company didn’t disclose any sales data.
Unfortunately, the rollout of the widgetized Foster’s and Kronenbourg lagers came right before the crest of the Great Recession. So whether or not these innovations resulted in a better drinking experience didn’t really matter. Customers presumably weren’t trying to fork over extra cash for fancy iterations of macro lagers, and they certainly weren’t going out to pubs as regularly, either. According to Nielsen data, Kronenbourg saw a decline of 8.8 percent in the off-trade in the 12 months leading up to October 2009. Likewise, Foster’s sales in the U.K. fell by 10 percent between early 2008 and February 2009.
In 2010, Kronenbourg rebranded its widgetized lager as “Kronenbourg 1664 with Draught Système,” but at some point (sources vary), the company discontinued the product. As for Foster’s In-Can Scuba, the beer is allegedly still available in the U.K., but it never became a global phenomenon like Guinness Draught. Although imitation may be the highest form of flattery, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee success.
*Image retrieved from Druk via Wikimedia Commons
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