ABSTRACT
Lifebuoy soap and LIXIL toilet cleaners improve hygiene, Durex condoms prevent infections and Discovery insurance promotes healthy diet and exercise. That was the challenge taken up by Carling Black Label, the largest-selling beer brand in South Africa. Since 2017, its marketers have worked to reduce the disturbingly high rates of violence against women in that country—without demonising its mostly male customers. The Carling brewery began in Canada in 1818 and developed the Black Label brand of lager in the 1920s. Through a series of mergers, it gained the scale to expand to Britain and throughout the Commonwealth. While the Molson Coors company controls the brand in Canada, Britain and the United States, South African Breweries took it on in its market in 1966. Beer was so ubiquitously enjoyed in South Africa that whatever solutions Carling developed, it needed to protect the bottom line and the overall industry.
