Foster's uses net, not TV, to find new mates in US

The online universe has secured another significant scalp in its battle with the old-fashioned mainstream media - Foster's will be the first beer brand to abandon TV and do its advertising online.

For its reshaped campaign to tempt American beer guzzlers, the brand that touted itself as "Australian for Beer" is switching its marketing efforts to heavy.com, a music and video site aimed at young men and which proclaims itself "the No 1 internet site for wasting time".

No more will the ad breaks in broadcasts of international sports such as the Tour de France and Formula One feature ads on how Foster's is indeed the Australian word for beer.

The internet promotion will, to borrow a slogan from one of Foster's main European competitors, reach places other beers cannot. The heavy.com ads will carry a competition to win a date in Las Vegas with an Australian model by answering questions based on video clips about the 10 girls posted on the site.

Foster's advertising firm, Ogilvy & Mather, also plans what it calls a "viral" campaign, with commercials made to look like homemade videos. It hopes they will create a word-of-mouth buzz about the brand.

Foster's move is yet more evidence of the trend of TV networks losing younger viewers and newspapers bemoaning a decline in advertising and young readers.

The brand "has been skewing a little bit older in terms of the consumer footprint than any healthy beer brand in the US would wish", said a spokesman for Foster's licensee in the US. "So there's a push to go for legal drinking age consumers, young men 21 to 27."

But the brand is also victim of its relatively small market share in the US. Foster's TV ad budget, of just US$5 million ($8 million) last year, was too small to have much impact.

- INDEPENDENT