The news that Asia Pacific Breweries is reviewing the global advertising arrangements for its Tiger beer brand is no surprise. To anyone in Asia who has seen one of the myriad of eclectic creative it’s a wonder they even bother with an agency as they clearly don’t seem to know what they want their brand to stand for and what they want to say about it.
This is partly due to the different number of creative tams having worked on the account which in turn has led to some puzzling if not downright bizarre sets of creative. A few examples over the last year alone.....
Tiger have recently launched what even for them must be one of the worst adverts you will ever see trying to promote the most confusing strapline ever created for a beer brand….”here’s to always working it out” with the second strapline of “Here’s to Tiger Time”. Yes precisely, go figure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mODZBEQAFTs
The creative for this new advert is equally bad (see above). You will notice that there is not a single Asian in the creative….which contrasts with their Christmas and CNY creative where there was not a single Westerner in the creative….which in turn followed several disasterrous Wayne Rooney led adverts which again featured not a single Asian and where clearly Rooney just counted the money……and in the middle was an appalling “heist” commercial which again didn’t feature a single Westerner and made even less sense and said nothing about their brand values! Do they have a rule where Asians and Westerners can’t mix in their creative?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ehd-gieH2k
What’s even more bizarre is that while the latest “languages” creative is going on on TV, Tiger are running creative exclaiming “Here’s to Living It Up, Here’s to Tiger Time” (see top) on bus stops, outdoor space and in newspapers…..which has nothing connected to the “languages” campaign on it at all! Bizarre in the extreme. It's as if they are running two completely different campaigns to confuse people even more and gain no cut through. Why are these two campaigns clashing? They have changed the Singtel Mio Stadium EPL sponsorship credits from “Here’s To Tiger Time” to the languages creative!! They can’t make up their mind what they’re doing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtd_WxhbPeg
Does anyone at Tiger know what they’re doing, what they’re co-ordinating, who they’re targeting and what their brand values are? Do the majority owners of Asia Pacific, Heineken, who know about focused brand marketing, know what Tiger's marketing people are doing with their brand? The opposite of good advertising!
In the UK, Tiger has previously worked with CHI & Partners and Tiger currently works with Iris, DDB and Y&R on its advertising accounts in Asia. Iris handles the integrated account in Singapore, which also includes sponsorship, while Y&R handles the regional ad account across Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, China, Thailand and Cambodia. DDB was recently appointed to handle Tiger’s above-the-line account in Singapore. It was previously held by Saatchi & Saatchi. Do Tiger just throw up names of agencies into a hat, exclude the ones they have worked with and pick one randomly out? Seems that way to me…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTCdzk00HTI