Carlton Draught: A Cheeky Pint

What’s the best way to push a product the consumption of which results in unsophisticated laughs and a sense that nothing is sacred?

It seems obvious now, but beer ads containing unsophisticated laughs that hold nothing sacred – not even beer – only took hold in 2004 when Carlton Draught’s landmark Canoe set sail. Joe Lancaster raises a glass to the brains behind a revolutionary campaign

It’s hard to imagine what viewers must have thought when, 15 seconds into a 45-second, 90s Gillette-style, black and white TV ad, its typically handsome protagonist – who’d so far been busy ‘making tough decisions’ and ‘winning’ in business – started waving a canoe around. It was a first, not for groups of men to carry canoes around as trophies of masculinity, but for an Australian beer ad to use this ironic, self-deprecating kind of humour.

Some people got the joke, others took it seriously (no, really) but no one – not even the people who made it – predicted it would pave the way for a campaign that would revolutionise Australian beer advertising.

One of Australia’s oldest names in beer, the Carlton Brewery was founded in 1864 and was one of the main players in the 1907 consolidation of breweries that saw the birth of today’s Carlton & United Breweries. Its flagship brand is the country’s treasured Carlton Draught. 

Dusting off a classic brand

Prior to 2004, Carlton Draught’s advertising aped the fairly earnest approach taken by the rest of the market, as described by Ant Keogh, creative director at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne. “Group of guys head to bar, thirsty, drinking shots. The brand itself was very solid but perhaps a little dusty – literally dusty. If you go back another decade they were almost like Marlboro ads of the time – guys on horses. Not to say that didn’t work brilliantly at the time.”

Keogh has co-written or creative directed every Carlton Draught ad since 2003, first at George Patterson Y&R and then Clemenger BBDO Melbourne. It was he, James McGrath and Grant Rutherford who cooked up the Made From Beer campaign that evolved into a series of unlinked commercials that satirise both beer advertising and the beer market itself.

The first TV spot was No Explanations. Compiled almost entirely from long-forgotten stock footage from Carlton’s past, it parodied beer ads that document the brewing process with lines from a gravelly voiceover like, “fermented in a big metal thing” and “poured into frosty sideways glasses and drunk in pubs”.

Drawing on the past

Then came the aforementioned Canoe, a nod to the infamous 80s commercials for Solo, an Australian soft drink aimed at macho men, some of which featured a butch hero kayaking down treacherous rapids (well worth finding on YouTube). It was a bold step for Carlton, as director Paul Middleditch explains. “The extraordinary thing about the ad was that the beer came out in black and white. You’d never imagine a brewery finishing a commercial with a shot of a pot of beer in black and white.”

Even though research showed that some people had missed the joke and taken the ad seriously, the brand pulled it off thanks to its self-deprecating nature, says Vince Ruiu, group marketing manager for the brewery. “At the heart of Carlton is the ability to not take ourselves or our category too seriously. We have a wonderful history, particularly through the Carlton Draught brand of ‘taking the piss’ a little.

Consumers allow us to do it because we’ve taken the piss out of ourselves, as well as any other topic, in equal proportions.”

Despite its guts and slick execution, Canoe was ignored at the AWARDs at the end of 2004, something that baffled Keogh and Middleditch, who were both on the judging panel. “We were surprised by how polarising it was and there were quite a few colleagues who didn’t think it worked for a number of reasons.

We were mystified at how they didn’t get it,” confesses Middleditch. But the following year the third spot in the Made From Beer campaign would change not only the industry’s perception of its predecessor, but also set a new benchmark for beer commercials.

The big ad that got bigger

Big and Ad are two small words that ended up being a huge deal for the creators of the 2005 spot. It’s typical of Carlton Draught humour that the title could be so simple, yet the commercial would become the stuff of legend.

Pioneering work from GPY&R, Big Ad was the first beer ad in Australia to be launched online, the first beer ad to use Vividas full-screen online streaming technology (enabling superb viewing quality), the first Australian ad to use Massive – the crowd generation software that conjured hoards of ‘actors’.

In short, it was the first ad on this scale the country had seen. It was worth it. Within 24 hours of going online it had got 160,000 views. By the time it aired on TV, that figure had risen to 1.2m – a fraction of the number who’ve seen it since.

But the ad didn’t just create a short-term buzz that was immediately forgotten. Ruiu points to Big Ad as one of the two biggest turning points in the recent history of Carlton’s marketing tactics. “It was the first of its kind to have such an impact in a digital age. So many brands (us included) have tried to replicate the strategy with minimal success. That was a great example of a one-way conversation between brand
and consumer. Today that has evolved through the sharing of digital information into a constant two-way conversation with consumers.”

At the ATV awards 2005, Canoe won Australian Commercial of the Year and Director of the Year. It was all thanks to Big Ad, says Middleditch. “After Big Ad came out people understood the genesis of Canoe.” And he believes that Big Ad didn’t only revolutionise beer commercials. “I think Big Ad has been seen as the most important piece of Australian advertising in the last 20 years,” says the director, who remembers the shoot as the most fun he’s ever had in his career.

Again, it playfully poked fun at the ad industry, “this ad better sell some bloody beer” didn’t hide the fact that the investment in such a huge production needed to yield a return, which of course it did. “Of all its contemporaries, Carlton Draught is the only brand that has weathered the storm to deliver 10 years of successive volume, value and share growth for CUB. It’s a phenomenal story and I believe that Made From Beer has been a significant anchor point for that success,” says Ruiu.

What came next was a dilemma. Carlton would now suffer from the same problem – albeit a positive one – that has plagued Guinness for decades.

After the runaway success of such a popular and iconic spot, making a sequel would be liking making Jaws 2. Keogh spotted the danger: “There was pressure to do a straight sequel but Grant Rutherford and I pushed fairly hard to make sure the next ad was not hundreds of guys running around.

Instead we made Flashbeer, which to my mind was the same spirit as Big Ad, but instead of a gang of people making a spectacle, it was just one guy showing a crazy display of his brand loyalty. It also used music and a similar tone so there were many similarities. Next, with Skytroop we kind of bowed to that pressure and pretty much did a sequel to Big Ad, for better or worse.”

A triangle of creative genius

After three decades working with GPY&R, Skytroop was the first Carlton ad created by Clemenger BBDO, where Keogh and Rutherford had moved to as creative director and ECD respectively. “GPY&R had been the incumbent agency with CUB for three decades. Their knowledge of our category and our brands was unrivalled,” says Ruiu, who is grateful to the original team who invented the Made From Beer campaign. “There is no doubt in my mind that a unique triangle of creative genius – Ant, Grant and James – translated that knowledge and creativity and set the Carlton Draught brand on its path to a decade of consistent volume, value and share growth. The transition to Clemenger wasn’t easy given the long history with George Patterson, however the brand didn’t miss a beat,” he says.

Skytroop was a comment on giant, self-important branding events. The line, “it wouldn’t make me buy it” muttered by a bloke who’d taken part in a synchronised skydive gone wrong was Carlton poking fun at itself again. The brewery is famous for staging such stunts that are usually as ridiculous as they are grand. Take the Drop The Bomb promotion, for example. A 65-year old man decides when to push a young lady’s car out of an aeroplane in an attempt to hit a 1km-wide target, 14,000 feet below in Queensland, Australia, to win her a new car and pocket himself A$100,000. Carlton partnered with the biggest names in national drive-time radio – Hamish and Andy of Fox FM – and as Ruiu describes it, “took the whole experience to another level”. The coverage generated was huge. Webisodes, created by Clemenger to coincide with the live radio show, played out the story almost in real time and smashed the show’s website’s previous downloads record after the event.

Other harebrained capers that Carlton has organised include Magnatron (members of the public using a crane and giant magnet to attempt to pick up winnable cars) and the Carlton Draught Plastic Cup. Dressed as schooners of beer, 30 participants (who qualify via an interactive ‘race’ on Facebook) run a hurdled race, for a big cash prize, at the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival.

The winner is the first to cross the finish line with at least 200ml of Carlton Draught left in his plastic cup. Since its debut in 2008, the race has already become a cherished part of the Carnival’s TV coverage. In fact, the whole Made From Beer campaign is cherished. When Big Ad was played on the scoreboard at half time during AFL games the crowd often sang along, something Keogh cites as the greatest compliment possible.

It hasn’t all been plain sailing for Made From Beer though. Last year, a series of TV spots directed by Tom Kuntz were never aired. The lead ad, Tingle, featured a song about “goolies” and “man plums”, which CUB’s board deamed too offensive. A web launch went ahead but the ads were pulled after a few days. A brewery spokesperson said: “Carlton Draught is known for creative work that pushes the boundaries. The business made the decision that it wouldn’t proceed. Some elements pushed the boundaries too far.”

Within six months the agency and the brand had bounced back with Slow Mo, the latest TV spot, which reveals how using slow motion in advertising can make even the most talentless, uncoordinated, beer-drinker look graceful.

“Quite a few people have said they’ve been in pubs when the ad came on and the whole pub would stop talking and watch it,” beams Keogh.

The great tradition of taking the piss

Another Facebook initiative that has been successful for Carlton was a product trial for a new flavour that partnered with a retailer. It drove foot traffic for the retailer and delivered a focused trial against the brand’s target market. “In the future I think we’ll use digital for a more ongoing conversation,” says Keogh, and Ruiu agrees. “We won’t be sitting on our hands, we will be searching for the next idea that will add category value and continue the great tradition of the Carlton brand.” Let’s just hope they don’t forget that great tradition includes Carlton’s knack for taking the piss out of the ad industry, and of course itself.