Tooheys Extra Dry Beer – The TED 696 Campaign

OBJECTIVES
Lion Nathan wanted to find more occasions for young adults to drink Tooheys Extra Dry, so it introduced a longneck, TED696ml. However, the longneck market is crowded and not an easy one for “cool” brands like Tooheys Extra Dry.

CAMPAIGN
Longnecks are traditionally sold in brown paper bags, covering the bottle’s branding. The bags represented an inexpensive medium that could be used to engage buyers and establish creativity.

Working with the insight that 18 to 24-year-old drinkers have a desire to express themselves, ZenithOptimedia worked with BMF to bring together the world’s best street artists and TED696’s target market to design brown paper bags around the theme 696.

Local designers were invited to submit designs in a competition that would be judged by the Luca, David Homer and Aaron Hayward at Debaser, Sydney artist Ben Frost, Murray Bell and Andrew Johnston at Design is Kinky, Colin Blake at MTV Sydney, and Tokyo/Sydney painter Numskull, the prize being a 15 ” MacBook, software and a framed set of designs signed by the three celebrity artists. The ten finalists would each receive a case of Tooheys Extra Day 696. The people’s choice, selected online by members of the public, would receive two cases of TED 696.

PR, events, advertorials, online seeding, search and a project website were activated, all with the humble brown paper bag at the core. The campaign created a new advertising medium, sending 700,000 paper bags with 696 designs to bottleshops. In the process, competitor longnecks were wrapped in 696-branded bags too.

The winner of the competition was Mike Watt, a Sydney based illustrator and designer.

RESULTS

In the first 8 weeks, over 500,000 longneck bottles of TED were sold representing $9 in sales for every $1 invested. The website received unique visits from 104 different countries, with each person spending an average of 9.5 minutes at the site.
During the 5-week competition period, we received a cutting edge design every 84 minutes.
MTV held a gala exhibition evening to announce the winning design. The exhibition is now touring nationally.
The bag design promotion was so succesful that it is now an ongoing project, with submissions being printed and distributed throughout liquor stores around the entire country.

Ironically, the brown paper bag that all longneck bottles are sold in, covers the branding of the product inside, yet it has never before been used as an advertising medium.

The 696 campaign won a Silver Pencil at the One Show 2009 for Point of Purchase and In Store Promotion, a Silver Lotus at the AdFest Awards for Direct Marketing, and a Yellow Pencil at the D&AD Awards 2009 for Printed Material in Branding.

Advertising Agency: BMF Sydney
Executive Creative Director: Warren Brown
Creative Director: Simon Langley
Art director: Shane Bradnic
Copywriter: Michael Canning
Year: 2009