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.

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