The Danish cider brand of Somersby has launched a website in Czech

In 2012, Budweiser Budvar, N.C. became the sole importer of Somersby Apple Cider to the Czech Republic. Somersby is a premium brand of the Danish concern Carlsberg Breweries. Last year’s interest of Czech customers confirmed a high commercial potential of this alcoholic beverage.  

“The cider represents an interesting alternative to malt alcoholic drinks, mixed beer drinks and wine. Customers accepted the Somersby brand very well. Last year we substantially increased the sales volumes in both distribution channels - ON TRADE as well as OFF TRADE,” says Budweiser Budvar’s Somersby brand manager Josef Kroulík. The product range extension by new Somersby Pear Cider was instrumental in the sales rise, so was a higher number of places of sale.  Last year Somersby cider was available in 0.33 litre bottles and cans.

“The Somersby brand wants to be a part of its consumers’ world, therefore the on-line communication represents an essential part of the brand’s marketing mix. Recently we have began communicating in Czech on the global Facebook profile and now we are launching a local Czech website as well,” explains Josef Kroulík. The website creation was preceded by a thorough analysis of the on-line communication of the Somersby brand on its home Danish market and also in other countries. The Czech website www.somersbycider.cz is of an image type, containing a short text describing the history and origination of cider, the information about all Somersby flavours available on the Czech market and mainly the application Where to get Somersby. Presently you can thus find more than a thousand most interesting clubs, bars, restaurants and shops on a map, which offer Somersby. The links to Somersby profiles on Facebook  at  https://www.facebook.com/Somersby and  on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/SomersbyCiders are the essential part of the website.

The Czech Somersby website has been created using a technology, which recognises the type of appliance the user is accessing the website from, adapting the display of the website in accordance with the relevant appliance for an easy use. The website works with most modern technologies of HTML 5 (including the video), CSS 3, Parallax scrolling using Java Script etc.. No Flash technology elements are used to show animations.

General information about cider
Good-quality cider is made from a special strain of apples. It is usually mixed from several apple strains in order to achieve the appropriate proportion of sweetness, bitterness and acidity of the initial cider. The extracted apple-must ferments in stainless steel tanks with a controlled temperature of fermentation that allows the preservation of aromatic substances in the beverage. Then it is racked into bottles, where the final fermentation can take place making the cider slightly sparkling. As a result of the final fermentation a haze can occur at the bottom of the bottles, which is not harmful. In accordance with the alcohol content, cider is classified as sweet (under 3 % of alcohol), medium-dry (3 - 5%) and dry (above 5%).

A fermented apple beverage was known as far back as the ancient times; it was called “sikera“ in Greek, “sicera“ in Latin and “šekar“ in Hebrew. The first medieval messages on cider production in Europe date back to the times of Charles the Great. The first research publication on cider production De vino et pomaceo was elaborated by Charles IX.’s personal doctor in 1588. Cider has been very popular in Europe these days, particularly in its western part. English-speaking countries call it “cider“, French call it „cidre“, Spanish and Portuguese „sidra“. In 2010, about 15 million hectolitres of cider were consumed in Europe. Its consumption has been constantly growing since 2000, with the sales annually increasing by 3% on average. As market research suggests, this trend is going to continue in the forthcoming years as well. This beverage is quite unknown in the Czech Republic for the time being.