Sammy tickles taste buds for Light roll out

HONG KONG: San Miguel has rolled out a light variant, complete with

a provocative cartoon icon, in a move to develop its share of a largely

untapped segment of the beer market.

The multi-million dollar San Miguel Light campaign has been created to

generate "new excitement in the category", with the market leading brand

looking to expand its reach among younger beer drinkers. The campaign

has 12 short and snappy executions for television, featuring Sammy the

icon in a series of wacky situations.

Ogilvy & Mather Hong Kong managing director, Mike Wong, said: "The

cartoon series talks to the young and young at heart about that little

bit of naughtiness inside each one of us that needs to be unleashed."

The fun and naughty elements of the brand are made clear in the

variant's "A little bit wild" tagline, said Wong.

The series of wacky scenarios has Sammy flicking the light switch in a

woman's toilet on and off and a lifetime learning scenario where he's

reading a lad's magazine.

With the brand aiming to reach younger drinkers, Wong believes the

over-the-top scenarios and use of cartoons will have greater appeal to a

demographic segment, which enjoys "visual and spontaneous

communications".

Wong said: "Using cartoon characters - like Popeye and Brutus - allows

us to be more playful with the brand.

"The category needed some fresh excitement. Beer brands can't keep

coming up with the same formula given the demands from other beverage

choices." O&M has developed a range of creative scenarios for a variety

of channels, ranging from television commercials, karaoke monitors,

cable, outlets, outdoor and merchandising.

"It's the beer business and of course outlet presence is as criticial as

a television commercial," Wong said, pointing to provocative T-shirts

"for the brave ones to wear", stickers and even a facial tattoo of the

icon. "We've tried to expand to all relevant points of contact creating

location-special executions of this campaign," Wong said, pointing to a

stronger brand presence in youth centres like Hong Kong's Mongkok

district.

For the television launch, media agency MindShare booked three sandwich

spots for greater impact.

The campaigns marks the first product creative O&M has rolled out for

San Miguel since taking the account away from J. Walter Thompson earlier

in the year.

JWT had engineered the brand's successful image revamp in the mid-90s

through the "Take a fresh look" repositioning.

In its first-ever tactical campaign for the brand, O&M did however

retain San Miguel's "fresh look" positioning to announce the beer

maker's decision not to raise retail prices due to a tax slapped on low

alcohol drinks in this year's budget.

Hong Kong's obscenity-spewing local rock band LMF, who took over from

clean-cut local celebrity Tony Leung as San Miguel's frontman late last

year, fronted the tax campaign.