Since its launch in 2013, Strongbow Dark Fruit has become the second best-selling draught cider in the UK, behind Strongbow Original but Sherwood-Smith believes there will be a day that the fruit variant will overtake its parent brand. In 2013 the cider category was booming. Fuelled by sunny weather and the urge for a sweeter, more drinkable summer beverage, consumers couldn’t get enough of bottled fruit cider. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has today (Wednesday 22 November) announced a range of tax, benefits and savings measures. We round up the key announcements and what they mean for you. Sherwood-Smith says: “Right from the start we reached out into culture and asked what are people doing. What is the current behaviour and how can you bring the [Strongbow] in the world effect to that?”

She explains: “The plan had never been for it to be in the on-trade, the plan had been for it to sit in grocery [in cans] but we were really pushing the agenda internally and really challenging the management upstairs and saying ‘we really believe people would buy purple pints’ and we’ve got a Dutch beer company going ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure?’. How do you bring people into the mainstream and if you are going to do a flavour how do you do it in a way that is true to what’s at the core – no pun intended – of Strongbow, which is masculine and refreshing?” We set up our own tattoo pop-up in Shoreditch where you could get your own Strongbow tattoo and we thought what if no one showed? We had 20 places and they were gone within a couple of hours.”This brand had two jobs to do: we were looking to bring people into our flavoured cider but it also needed to rejuvenate the Strongbow master brand. Emma Sherwood-Smith, Heineken

Sherwood-Smith still can’t quite believe it: “People went absolutely crazy. The success and speed at which it grew penetration and distribution completely took us by surprise so we are now in 26,000 pubs in the UK bearing in mind we started with 10.” A ‘cultural phenomena’ Consumers competing for a brand’s attention is something Sherwood-Smith says is “unusual for a mainstream brand”. In more recent years Dark Fruit has been using social more heavily to capitalise on the love that has made it a ‘‘become a cultural phenomena” she says.. Always with brands, if you want to achieve scale mass media remains an important part of the marketing mix”, she says. Martin Lewis: What the Autumn Statement means for you – including wages, benefits, pensions, ISAs, national insurance and moreMartin Lewis: What the Autumn Statement means for you – including wages, benefits, pensions, ISAs, housing, national insurance and more Over time Strongbow Dark Fruit has become a firm favourite and the brand has learnt to lean into the love – including engaging with its most extreme fans. READ MORE: Strongbow ‘connects with nature’ in latest campaign as it aims to inspire the younger generation