Beer Advertising

A brewer once remarked to me the difference between premium and regular beer saying, “It’s fantastic to make top shelf beers but, it’s the regular beer that pays the bills.” So how do the big breweries step up against a raging premium and international beer dominated market? Through advertising, but not as we have known it.

Today’s beer campaigns are ranged for the 19-29 year olds with attitude, little time in their schedules, who demonstrate an upbeat enthusiastic view of the world around them. Gone are the archaic Vaudevillian slapstick humour bits in exchange for innovative, quirky, entertaining, sensual and humoruous - don’t forget the humour.

It was eleven years ago that J. Boag & Son employed the radical genius of photographer Helmut Newton to create the first premium beer ad ‘Who is James Boag’ campaign. We have been seduced by the lady in black, first on the couch scene then over the balcony to the latest erotic fantasy with the lady on the car bonnet. According to Anthea Pritchard, marketing manager at J. Boag & Son we will see all the ads this year, “The feedback to the ads is that they are timeless and people want to see them again. The intrigue and mystery have stayed true and interesting to all ages. Some people felt the ads vilified women, but Helmut Newton is controversial. The fact is that women have beauty that men ogle about; but women have the power over the situation. There is no question about who has the power is in these shots.”

The Carlton Draught ‘Big Ad’ represents the most significant change in Australian beer advertising in a decade. Now, when a mate tells you to switch on the screen to catch the latest ad, they probably are referring to the computer, not the television. Three million viewers is an impressive number by anybody’s standards, especially when you consider that the campaign began as an email stream among Foster’s Australia employees. Within 24 hours of viral life, the ad had been viewed 162,000 times, and was eventually seen in 132 countries. According to Matt Keen, general manager regular beer, Fosters Australia, “We have been blown away by the response from consumers and how far and wide it’s been enjoyed around the world”.
The epical nature was the brainchild of Animal Logic, the special effects masters who gained fame from working on films ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Moulin Rouge’ .They transformed a cast of 300 to thousands in collaboration with director of photography Andrew Lesnie, Academy Award winner in 2002 for ‘Best Cinematography’ for ‘Fellowship of the Ring’. Since the ad was launched, the sales figures have shown a healthy twelve per cent volume increase MAT Dec ’05 and a massive 41 per cent growth in New South Wales according to Felicity Watson, communications manager regular beer, Foster’s Australia.

Lion Nathan worked with advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi to develop the ‘For the Love of Beer’ campaign. Launched in February this year, it’s a Monty Pythonesque view of catapulting objects at the heavenly gods to the catchy tune of ‘The Great Escape’. Saatchi & Saatchi executive creative director, David Nobay, commented, “In some ways, the concept behind ‘Catapult’ is completely insane, and yet the idea of wanting it to rain beer is also entirely plausible. When your lips are parched and the sun is up, a great beer certainly feels like a gift from the gods. Tooheys New has just brought the dream to life for all to enjoy.”

Supporting this concept is Paul Foster, managing director mainstream beer, Lion Nathan Australia. “Our target audience is young Australians but it’s important that all ages enjoy the experience. We want to put mainstream beer on a pedestal and champion its cause. We want people from all walks of life to join in the celebration, to capture the moment of ‘raining beer’”. Catapult was first launched off the back of unbranded outdoor activity in some of Australia’s most iconic locations and was first ‘previewed’ via the web medium on Valentine’s Day but quickly launched into pay TV, free-to-air and cinema. According to Foster, “The internet is only another way to reach our customers. TV, cinema and outdoor advertising all play a crucial role as well.”

No doubt multi-media strategies are important tools to get the word out about a new beer, but television continues to be the yardstick to measure successful ad campaigns.

Advertisements such as Tooheys 'Bath Bomb'(2003), 'Bean Bomb'(2004) and 'What Mates Do', not to mention the Toohey’s Extra Dry 'Tongue'(2003) ad have changed the face of beer advertising forever. Many of the changes came from International beers such as the dark humour of the Guinness “I like to watch’ ads, and the Heineken Beer Moments campaign featuring ‘Quando’(2002), Jennifer Aniston ‘top shelf’(2003 and ‘Blind Date’(2003)Ads such as these have lifted the image of beer from the more 1980s and 1990s images of beer being a boys only, thirst quencher for working class blokes or men of the land, to a beverage that appeals to women and men alike. Using humour, these ads cleverly avoided sexist or condescending messages and instead, appealed to both real-life and fantasy scenarios that took the perception of beer into a new dimension

Another innovative stroke of genius this year in the battle for brand beer supremacy has been the VB ‘Boony Doll’. The Talking Boony figurine houses an audio chip loaded with the special comments and a timer that was synchronised with the VB Series (based on Eastern Standard Time). This special figurine was programmed to ‘sleep’ (to preserve power) until the start of the VB Series and then wake up for each of the matches broadcast on Channel 9 and respond to audio triggers transmitted through the TV. Over 200,000 figurines have been sitting close to TVs in homes across the country. The demand has been so high that after promotional stocks were exhausted, Talking Boonies were fetching up to $50 on e-Bay. Talking Boony has special code words (which were also being posted on the Boonanza website) for the twelve in-telecast prize draws. Prizes up for grabs included specially signed and framed Boonanza merchandise and a trip to the second VB Series final in Sydney for a winner and three mates.

So successful has the Boonanza Campaign been that it has led to Foster’s Australia announcing a new sponsorship deal with Cricket Australia, designed to showcase its premium multi-beverage portfolio across all levels of the game. Who says that TV ads can’t change the world.