‘Destiny’ awaits Australian beer drinkers in new icy summer ad campaign via Droga5, Sydney
Tonight VB will premiere the first commercial for its summer campaign entitled ‘Destiny’. Developed by Droga5 Sydney, the new TVC tells Australians that VB is brewed to be the nation’s best cold beer, by bringing to life the idea that VB and ice were destined to be together.
‘Destiny’ follows on from recent campaigns including the award-winning ‘Regulars’, which told Australians who drinks VB, and ‘Cry’ that showed the country who doesn’t. The new ‘Destiny’ TVC goes one step further telling Australians why they should be drinking VB.
‘Destiny’ follows the journey of two things that are literally made to be together – a case of VB and a big bag of ice. Their parallel pathways are shown from production to purchase, until they unexpectedly collide at a backyard BBQ to fulfil their mutual destiny – to create The Best Cold Beer.
Says Craig Maclean, senior brand manager for VB: “We wanted to focus on the heart of VB and that’s our beer. The new TVC puts the beer back in the spotlight by telling Australians why VB is the Best Cold Beer and that’s because its specially brewed to deliver full flavour when ice cold.”
“The ‘Destiny’ TVC is just the tip of the iceberg for VB this summer. It will lay the foundation for a significant program to demonstrate why VB is the best cold beer,” said Maclean.
Says Sudeep Gohil, executive planning director at Droga5 Sydney: “The Best Cold Beer’ is so much more than a tagline. No other Australian beer holds its flavour when icy cold quite like VB, and this latest campaign is all about amplifying the brand’s DNA to a whole new generation of beer drinkers over the hot summer months.”
VB is committed to evolving the brand through a range of marketing initiatives and is currently performing strongly against its key competitors in their home states, growing share ahead of Tooheys New in New South Wales and 4X Bitter in Queensland*. VB continues to be Australia’s favourite beer, outselling its nearest competitor by nearly 81 million stubbies / cans a year**.
VB (CUB)
Acting Chief Marketing Officer: Paul Donaldson
Senior Brand Manager: Craig Maclean
Brand Manager: Mim Orlando
Assistant Brand Manager: Andrew Vance
Droga5 Sydney
Creative Chairman: David Nobay
Executive Creative Director: Duncan Marshall
Creative Director: Cam Blackley
Creative: Lucy McBurney
Head of Broadcast: Paul Johnston
Group Business Director: Jamie Clift
Business Director: Esther Knox
Business Manager: Angus Ingham
Executive Planning Director: Sudeep Gohil
Strategic Planning Director: Justin Graham
Plaza Films
Director: Paul Middleditch
Producer: Peter Masterton
Editor: Peter Whitmore / The Editors
Music and Sound: Nylon
Post Production: The Editors
*. ACNeilson, Scantrack, F’11
**. Nielsen Packaged Beer Mar 2011 MAT
49 Comments
That brand has lost the plot
Is that the Renault ad?
Even the good CDs struggle here. Tough market
A good educational guide to third world drinkers: beer should be served ice cold. However I think we’re a bit further down the road than that.
Very Average.
I guess VB is a very average beer.
Is there a third brand out there about to launch a new campaign linking their alcoholic drink with ice?
I thought Bulmers and ice was where it was at?! Now i’m told it’s VB and ice! man i’m so confused, anyone would think that ANY beverage and ice go well together.
client should have given this the cold shoulder…case of emperors new clothes?
11.21, I believe there is.
West Coast Cooler. It’s best when it’s cooler.
Average
Try hard.
The Patts stuff from a few years back was so much better.
Droga5 can’t do beer ads.
Yeah most blokes just love tight-arse mates who turn up just with a $3 bag of ice and no beers to a BBQ.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
After all that they go back to where they were 10 years ago?
There’s an awesome Brokeback Mountain, manlove destiny message here.
Beer, not so much..
Give Leyland a VB.
They’ve finally realised that completely and utterly fucking over 40 years of heritage to turn VB into a ‘cool’ beer, a ‘drinking beer’ was moronic and now they need to claw back some ground and are slowly slinking back to ‘the best cold beer’. How many new lines are they up to now?
How about new marketing managers, wanna be hero creatives and the like stop and think next time and consider before they throw the baby out?
That the old VB campaign actually gave people a legitimate reason to drink; they deserved it. It wasn’t based on taste, on cool, on pull factor, it was the simple fact that if you worked hard a VB was a more than fair reward.
40 years of drumming it into people that drinking VB was good thrown out so a few people could say they did the new VB ad thinking it was good.
Thank fuck someone somewhere has come to their senses. This ain’t good, but it’s a start.
Isn’t Bulmers a CUB brand?
so there’s Bulmers and Ice … and VB and Ice.
This is Slow Mo Carlton Draught and slow mo VB again. Same mistake.
Droga5 out of 10.
I wish there was a like button for 12:10’s comment
“amplifying the brand’s DNA”
By telling us beer is best when it’s kept cold with ice.
next insight
Beer is best consumed with the cap off the beer.
Not great. But we all know we don’t make ads in isolation from the client. And between this and the Crown ad – it smells like a client freaked out that their sales are down, who has looked at the success of brands like Boags and become obsessed with being product-centric in their TVCs. Unfortunately, the VB product isn’t special, so they clutch at some straws from the old line.
The old split screen routine…
The industry is quickly realising that Droga are not half as good as some would have you think, but the past few years of VB efforts clearly reeks of flighty marketers. Everyone in the liquor trade tells you what a bunch of tools Fosters/CUB are; here’s further evidence.
Just bring back the old VB ads. Wouldn’t even trust Droga to get those right, don’t even update them. Just pay the John Meilion estate and you might have half a chance of saving some market share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-xqoRqRwW8
Except a bunch of short film students did it better for Nokia
Lift you’re game D5
I just threw up a bit of the Coopers Pale Ale I had at lunch in mouth.
I think 1:23 is right. The product’s nothing to crow about, but the brand (historically) is, so going back to a core part of the brand’s heritage – not just a tag line but a core brand promise – makes a lot of sense. And the notion of seriously cold, seriously good-tasting cold beer has to be appealing to the target audience. I can’t find much to love about the execution but who on this blog drinks VB? The strategy is more than sound… and let’s remember who’s consuming the beer, and who’s consuming the advertising….
This is just appalling and so is their new Crown spot – what is going on over there.
With all due respect, there hasn’t been a decent VB ad since ‘Stubbie Symphony’. Bring back Ben & Cuz. This stuff is depressing.
You know what, I actually felt like a beer watching that ad. And whack it on when it’s 40 degrees outside and I reckon it will hit the spot big time. I don’t work for D5 but I think that in terms of flogging piss, this is a pretty solid piece of work. It’s better than dodgy kebabs and man-scaping parades. It’s about time we all got a little less clever. It might help us sell more.
Let’s be clear about one thing: no-one who reads this blog is the VB target market. Get over yourselves.
“amplifying the brand’s ball sack”
Without doubt the most over rated agency in Australia.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
No one likes a pretender.
Back to the future stuff. Is this Droga admitting that they fucked up on the earlier VB stuff? Finally, people are waking up to the fact that the emperor isnt wearing any clothes….
Hey you Fosters marketers, the old ads were great….bring them back, create new versions of a campaign that worked and keep those tossers at Droga5 as far away as possible from this great Australian brand as you can.
Okay.
For fuck’s sake these are so gay.
I reckon the Droga5 team don’t drink VB.
And personally I wouldn’t sit in a pub and down pots with them.
The team at Droga must be smoking ice to believe that this is good work.
Well, there you have it D5. The jury of your peers seems to be in furious agreement. It’s pretty simple.You tossed out a unique, credible strategy – the hard-earned thirst – and tried to be cute. Again and again. And you failed. As a sage said some time ago – I think it may have been me – there are 101 beers on the shelf, but only one you had to earn. A position drummed into the heads of Australians through 40 years of repetition. It sat easily because it made sense. Some of us with a fair bit of experience have believed all along that the task for VB in the twenty-first century, far from being a terrifying blank-piece-of-paper challenge was to merely make the ‘hard-earned thirst/best cold beer’ proposition relevant to the times.
Wow i just can not wait to see what they do with Cadbury…
worst beer ad I have seen in this country. good luck cadbury….
i have absolutely zero to do with the agency but i think the way that Droga gets bagged on this blog is pretty disgusting really and a classic example of this country town’s mentality.
i dont ever recall the agency claiming they were the best in the country despite the fact that their award haul might say otherwise. As for slamming their beer work, let’s remember VB regulars picked up 2 yellow D&AD pencils and a gold lion at Cannes for fucks sake. tell me who out there in this comment thread (including myself) wouldn’t want that?
We all go on about VB’s lost brand heritage position of ‘reward for effort’ and hey i tend to agree, but anyone who has worked in this business for half an hour knows that a positioning like this is usually always dictated by the client and often the agency is left to interpret this the best way they can.
at the end of the day its fine to critique the work thats what this blog is there for but i do believe we need to respect local agencies and those who work there especially when unlike most of the mouthy muppets on this blog, these people actually have the runs on the board to prove it.
5.28 nailed it.
Middleditch directed this?
I guess it’s hard to turn down work when D5 comes calling, and Plaza needs to keep the doors open like everyone else.
But this isn’t Saatchis circa ’07. That was yesterday, and yesterday’s gone, long gone.
Can anyone tell me why one bottle is upside down on the conveyor belt as it passes through……
After viewing VB try hard TVC’S for the last few years
it’s easy to see you can’t go past a hard earned thurst.
Just make it for today
.
8:19, you give yourself away with the passion of your response. Nobody on the outside of D5 is going to be arsed to defend them so aggressively… Fair play to you, but don’t pretend you don’t work there.
Steven, how many extra slabs of VB did those pencils and Lion sell?
A cold beer rewards a hard-earned thirst. VB is the best cold beer.
This doesn’t make the link. It’s missing the hook. I don’t take out much benefit here.
The most surprising thing for me is the fact that it is now being referred to as “Vic” again.
This is a major retreat (along with the reintroduction of the old VB music -classic that it is, should never have left it), because everything has been done over recent history to create the brand “VB” and distance itself from it’s association with “Victoria” and certainly “Vic”. One would think this isn’t so appealing to the NSW and maybe Qld markets.
I was working at patts at the time (though didn’t work on the Fosters account) when fosters moved away from the classic ‘hard earned thirst’ ads. There was a simple reason the client wanted to do so: sales were going down.
So just putting those back on TV probably wouldn’t be the answer. It’s an interesting situation – what would you do? Keep running the same ads when sales are going down?
Someone above said to take those classic ads and update them, making them new again, but that’s just what Patts team did at the time with the “kebab” series – used the same premise and theme, even bits of the music, but updated the situations.
No they didn’t. Or if that’s what ‘kebab’ etc were trying to do,they didn’t do it at all well. Amusing, but not on-strategy. Time to put some professionals on the job.