How Duvel leveraged company fashion to activate their giant community

The Red D. Belgian. Devilishly good. Duvel, love it or hate it. No matter what, the love brand is more prominent than ever. Brewery Duvel-Moortgat has been brewing beers for more than a century.

Duvel-Moortgat is an independent family business with a distinctive focus on specialty beers. Duvel Moortgat encompasses 11 breweries: 4 in Belgium, 3 in the United States, 1 in Czech Republic, 1 in Italy, 1 in the Netherlands and 1 in the United Kingdom.

This year, Duvel Moortgat celebrates its 150th anniversary. The company owes much of its success to its Belgian Golden Strong Ale, but what about their giant worldwide fanbase? Grab a beer, this case explains the classic use of company fashion as a very powerful marketing tool for your sales team.

In 1923, the production of Duvel started with just a few crates. Today, in more than 60 countries countless beer lovers enjoy Duvel. The beer is still brewed with deep respect for the original recipe and maturation periods. There may be a new devilish look, but their goal has always been delivering the same “heavenly” taste. A revolution in the world of brewing, their customers live for.

As Duvel-Moortgat is far more than a passion for beer, their identity makes them a strong love brand. That’s why giving clients/fans a feeling of importance by rewarding them with unique personalized company fashion or personalized gift boxes is key. So the number one focus of a love brand like Duvel is transforming their customers into real brand ambassadors that spread positiveness about their brand.

They wanted to take their merchandise marketing strategy to a whole new level. Every quarter we hold together a meeting to brainstorm new ideas and ways to execute them on a new level customized to their fanbase. Having their own team focused on merchandise combined with our expertise in company fashion we keep on challenging each other every season.

As Duvel has a strong community, selling a fashion collection is a great way to increase their revenue. The goal of Duvel’s merchandise team is to achieve 2 million euros in revenue within a few years with just the sale of their merchandise through their webshop. Challenging! But picking the right branded items is crucial within the process.

We started from the brewery’s final objective and worked backwards to the product range that forms a solution for achieving the final objective. By developing clothing in their pantone colors, styling unique designs and offering that extra touch other textile companies can’t offer. As additional confirmation, Sunday is also the trusted company fashion creator for their subsidiary brands: Chouffe, Vedette and Liefmans.

Sweaters, sport shirts, socks, boxer shorts, swim shorts and sliders were on the list. All products their fanbase could purchase and use on a daily basis. By building on a strong clothing brand around the brands of Duvel-Moortgat, they create massive added value for their community. Deploying company fashion as part of the Sunday strategy empowers fans and at the same time leads to more sales.

As a major player in the industry Duvel does not only want to brew quality beer, but also contribute as much as possible to a healthy environment in order to maintain a sustainable future. A great match with Sunday, as we work exclusively with certified materials, this ranges from organic cotton to recycled polyester. And thus avoid plastic, an essential concern within Duvel-Moortgat.

Like the Belgian company we oppose disposable fashion, so we only produce company fashion that people will actually wear! All our products are ethical and ecological produced within Europe, another key point for Duvel. Hereby at Sunday we can guarantee the highest standards in quality & sustainability.

Our partnership with Duvel-Moortgat goes beyond the product level. Meaning that we bring technical knowledge about production, but also commercial knowledge, marketing-technical knowledge to make the entire project a success. A promise we keep, as the sales generated out of the Duvel webshop boomed. Resulting in a long term revenue pillar. This way all marketing ROI is even a bonus.

At the time Duvel-Moortgat started creating company fashion, it was revolutionary in their industry. As the swag represented the quality of the beer. Their target audience soon realised, by wearing the brand they can show true ambassadorship and support. That’s why the wearables became real collectors items.

Fans create lots of buzz on social media, they reorder with more volume and the collection drives more revenue growth than ever before. With these important points ticked off, more design projects for onboarding, expansion tribe and company wide events with Duvel-Moortgat await in the future.