Bigger than the All Blacks

By GEORGINA BOND


The Steinlager bottle has a new message in its advertisements - know who you are.

With its new "boxer" television ad, Steinlager is punching home what it considers the brand's core values of passion, strength, commitment, mana, courage, sacrifice and success.

The commercial tells the story of a young boxer and the places and people he finds strength from leading up to the biggest fight of his life.

Relationships with his father, the family bach, the sea, the land and himself are explored.

The focused boxing hero is the physical embodiment of the brand's new "know who you are" tag line and message to consumers.

Steinlager marketing manager Adam Prentice said Lion Nathan wanted the new campaign by Meares Taine to take the brand beyond its long association with the All Blacks.

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Sponsorship of sport has been a strong element in the brand profile, which has included links to the Whitbread and Round Australia yachting races and the America's Cup.

Prentice said he wanted fresh thinking on the brand. "It was time for a change."

The brief was to take Steinlager forward and to celebrate what it meant to be a New Zealander, something he said was previously lacking.

Meares Taine's Steinlager account director, Mike Watkins, said he thought the boxer advertisement said more about Steinlager's brand positioning and about inner strength and mana than had any previous campaign.

"The All Blacks are a part of Steinlager, but they're not Steinlager," he said.

"We're making the brand bigger than the All Blacks."

The Meares Taine creative team, lead by Josh Lancaster and Jamie Hitchcock, considered different scenarios, but felt the boxer best encapsulated the brand's core values.

"Boxing is a vehicle to deliver the message, it's a metaphor for strength and courage," said Watkins.

The message was to stay focused on self-beliefs and truths.

"It's about doing your own thing and not worrying about what other people think of you - it's quite an introspective attitude."

The boxer represented the attitude of Steinlager drinkers and - like the brand itself - was something with which more mature drinkers would identify.

"You mature into Steinlager, in the same way that you reach an age where you know what your core beliefs are," Watkins said.

"The target market is less about age demographics and more about the attitudinal values they hold."

Beer advertising had typically relied on humour, Watkins said, but the agency wanted to create an inspirational advertisement.

Casting a professional boxer in the black and white commercial directed by Motion Pictures' Dennis Hitchcock delivered a look and experience that was real - a brand value true to Steinlager.

'Boxer' is the foundation of an integrated campaign that includes a new look to the beer's packaging and at liquor outlets.

Watkins said the agency was waiting for the first solid register of how the campaign was performing, but it would evolve naturally.

"It's pretty fertile territory as far as where we can go with it," he said. "New executions will flow over the next few years but the brand values will stay the same. It's a case of how else can we reflect those brand values in new stories."

Prentice said Steinlager was in a solid position with six per cent of the grocery market. It was the fifth largest beer brand in New Zealand and the largest premium brand.

Watkins said one of the aims was to push more self-belief into the brand.

The campaign has been praised for the way it has been filmed, but one marketing commentator thinks the new campaign lacks continuity with previous campaigns.

"We do like some continuity in the things that are important to us," he said.

"Otherwise it's literally like knowing someone and every time you see them they dress or behave differently."