Saatchi and Saatchi – New Zealand
Ah, a pang of newly established and joyous pride as I saw that this ad for Tooheys was created by our antipodean friends in Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney.
The concept is good humoured, laddy one. People care about beer so much that they only care about beer. So, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, they created a campaign based around the idea that Toohey’s was replacing the Australian dollar and created a comical pricing system, largely based on things you might do once you’d had a couple yourself.
WHAT THEY DID
Essentially, they created a campaign where Tooheys new becomes the nation’s new currency, as people can always rely on beer. Funny ads creating a price guide (changing a lightbulb in your nan’s bathroom whilst she’s in the bath with her boyfriend = 5 cases) acted as a catalyst for real world scenarios, encouraging people to adopt this system in their lives.
Put more eloquently Lion Nathan marketing director Margaret Zabel said the beer economy “works so well because this simple insight rings true in the real world, and is a concept that most people can relate to”.
HOW THEY DID IT
Firstly the price guide (i.e texting your friend’s mum saying you fancied her would cost you 3 cases of Tooleys) was broadcast on TV, radio and web.
Integrated/real world. Then they sent ‘Tooheys accepted here’ window stickers out to retail outlets to pop in the windows and doors alongside their VISA stickers.
Then the online took off, with the production of the instant beer calculator on the Tooheys website, providing a fruit machine format of scenarios that culminate in a price tag.
Then IOUs were created online and could be printed off so people could keep tabs on how many er tabs they owed each other. Also, templates for those willing to work for beers were created.
Integrated plan to get outside, and take to the streets. They built graphs out of beer cases showing beer economy spending, and displayed these results in national print publications.
Lastly, and as a very nice touch, a Toohey’s team trekked across the country lending a hand in communities, building municipal facilities, cleaning up etc. All workers were paid in beer. This was billed as a stimulus package.
The notion here of beer as being ample reward for an honest day’s work seems to highlight the value of the work being done and in turn the value of the beer. Tongue-in-cheek, sympathetic towards the ridiculousness of the economic crisis, caring, philanthropic. I love them now, and i don’t touch the stuff.
If there was one way to improve the reach of the campaign, I would have made the IOUs easier to post onto facebook, creating a direct link on the Tooheys website. too. The facebook group has 12,000 members which is great, but if people could post the IOUs onto their profiles then they would appear on the news feed and reach 1000s more people very quickly indeed. A twitter feed #paidintooheys could have added value to the project.
That said the results speak for themselves. An increase in market share worth $22.1 million (AUD) in the first month
Nice Cannes 
Leave a comment