Effie Case Study: Foster's 'Aussie Six-Pack' Campaign

Unlike the marketing plans for its higher-volume sister brands, activity for MillerCoors' Foster's needs to motivate the company's field sales force to sell the Australian import and get retailers to stock it.The unorthodox size of the brand's signature packaging — the shelf-hogging 25.4-ounce "Oil Can" — makes this a challenge, since retailers often are hesitant to stock a large SKU that typically is purchased one at a time and therefore isn't as appealing as six-packs and 12-packs. Therefore, only 42% of convenience stores stock Foster's.Preparing for summer 2012, a time when the party atmosphere surrounding the category is at its peak, MillerCoors needed a program that would buck an overall decline in c-store beer sales to increase both distribution and sales for Foster's. The goal was to develop a campaign that would get 21- to -31-year-old males to view Foster's as a viable option for their social-occasion beer purchases, which would inspire more distributors and retailers to get behind the brand.The belief among beer drinkers that Foster's was only suitable for lone drinking occasions wasn't just a perception problem. Functionally speaking, the size of the cans, and the fact that c-stores don't offer baskets or carts, make it difficult to tote more than one Foster's SKU up to the checkout counter — let alone lug them down to the beach for a party.But Foster's and agency Arc Worldwide came up with a "big idea" as ingenious as it was simple: Because the 24-ounce Oil Can contains more than twice as much beer as a standard can, putting three of them together would create an "Aussie Six-Pack." The concept aligned perfectly with the brand's ongoing "Australian for Beer" marketing theme, which commonly plays on the outsized country's propensity for "bigness" (as well as quirkiness).At MillerCoors' annual distributors convention in March, Foster's previewed a 15-second "Aussie Six-Pack" TV spot and handed out samples of a plastic can carrier that would be merchandised on cooler doors at retail. A P-O-P kit distributed to participating stores also included signage and a special UPC for the carrier that could be downloaded to turn the three-SKU purchase into a one-scan transaction.The TV spot placed the brand in seasonally appropriate social settings while making the volume comparison with a traditional six-pack. Activity on the brand's Facebook page and a variety of digital media (banner ads, vignettes, video billboards, snipe and tune-ins) on target-friendly websites supported the effort.Closer to the point of purchase, the spot ran on the Gas Station TV network to drive gas pumpers into the store, where signs at the cooler encouraged shoppers to "grab some for your mates."Orders for the P-O-P kits and the carriers far exceeded expectations as distribution increased significantly during the May to August promotional period. Sales enjoyed a double-digit rise.

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