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.
