Carlton Draught ads are pulled again
Carlton Draught’s on again-off again advertising campaign has taken a turn for the farcical with the company pulling down the ads for a second time.
The Any Excuse website was removed on Friday without an explanation and later redirected to the main Carlton website.
The move is the latest in a marketing debacle that began when senior management at Foster’s, owner of Carlton & United Breweries, overruled the marketing department and ad agency Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and pulled a series of ads days before they were due to air on TV.
As well as the “Tingle” ad, above, featuring a man getting “a feeling right in his goolies” another featured the mildly risque “Weenis”.
The series of Carlton ads were finally released last week, but online only, and limited to a microsite. Despite that, copies quickly appeared elsewhere.
The move came just hours after Vincent Ruiu, group marketing manager at Carlton Brands, told the Sydney Morning Herald: “Online, it’s unable to offend anyone.”
At the time of posting, CUB’s communications team had not returned Mumbrella’s requests for a comment.
UPDATE:
A CUB spokeswoman confirmed to Mumbrella: “The campaign has now ended.”
She declined to comment on why the site was taken down just over 48 hours after it launched, or whether it is now developing a new campaign with Clemenger.
The spokeswoman said however that it is “business as usual” with the agency.
The only marketing activity currently running for Carlton Draught is the sales promotion “Mystery Prize” campaign which is being led by CUB’s below-the-line agency Apollo.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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I think the Fosters executives made the right decision.
These ads just don’t do it for me and I’m not sure who would honestly find them appealing.
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They just feel they are just trying to be a little to clever. Great ad are ground breaking, attention grabbing and need to be simplistic in some way to appeal to a mass audience. These ads make you chuckle – good for a couple of views but them are forgetable. Yeh, we all know of the talent behind these ads howeer could it be a case of the King’s new clothes.
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close resemblance to and old Reeves and Mortimer sketch “mulligan and o’hare” . And yes these ads are a bit self indulgent by Mr Kuntz.
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Hmm no great loss really!
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Seems to be a lot of pulling going on.
CUB have pulled it twice, and the creatives behind the ads were quite obviously pulling themselves.
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Bring on the ‘told ya’ haters.
@Elle, it’s ‘too clever’ btw.
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Just waiting for someone to comment on how they don’t relate to the characters and it doesn’t make them feel like drinking beer (insert rolling eyes emoticon here). These ads are funny, memorable and will cut through the clutter – it’s a shame we won’t get to see them because if a bunch of politically-correct-dont-want-to-put-my-ass-on-the-line marketers. And no, I don’t work for Clemenger.
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Allan, hmm the ads probably weren’t targeted at men named ‘Allan’ who are spending their Friday evening surfing on mumbrella.
The question you should ask yourself is ‘are these ads targeted at me? If not, maybe there’s a chance the target market WILL like them.
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These are rubbish, product and price is still the best way to get a message across. A guy standing in front of camera saying “When thirsty drink Carlton Draught,When thirsty drink Carlton Draught,When thirsty drink Carlton Draught……………..” over and over again for thirty seconds will cause a major lift in sales.
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I loved them. Seems to be a lot of people taking themselves pretty seriously here
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I’m still amazed that no one has commented on the rugby player getting a feeling in his nose hairs that tells him to take a mood altering substance. At least he’s not wearing a Knights jumper I guess…
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I think they are great.They target blokes who are beer drinks with good humour.Good on em for giving it a go.
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I agree with Zeff. They’re a bit of fun and they look like they’d create sales.
Pity management changed and just didn’t like ’em.
SMH quoted $200,000 wasted. The full campaign looks to me like at least three times that amount. Ouch!
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The lead singer looks exactly like Steve Jobs when he had a beard.
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Found the launch above and the jingle fun. But would it have been less funny if ‘the tingle’ wasn’t connected to the man bits? Probably not. The real pity is that ‘the Carlton Draught tingle’ is one of those brand properties that could deliver many years of great advertising. It’d be sad if all that was lost because the client believed one execution might’ve been pushed a little bit too far. [Their right entirely]. I hope the agency is back on Foster’s doorstep tomorrow with a new ‘tingle’ campaign, jingle and all, that addresses Foster’s concerns. That ‘tingle’ idea is too good to throw out just yet.
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It’s a shame, the average ‘punters’ seemed to like it. Obviously been pretty controversial within the industry, but the feedback I’ve heard from outside has been good… Triple M loved them, you can’t get much more average than that
http://www.triplem.com.au/bris.....-7to5.html
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The Flight of the Concords should have been given the brief – Brett would have killed it
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I liked them to be honest. They weren’t anything ground breaking but they were fun and i think the target market would have had a good giggle down at the pub about the tingle – bit of a shame they wont air.
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“The company then decided that having spent the best part of the $200,000 it had paid in fees and production..”
Um…7 executions for 200k?
At Clems???
OK..
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“I think the Fosters executives made the right decision.
These ads just don’t do it for me and I’m not sure who would honestly find them appealing.”
-I do: in fact I LOVE them. they are funny, memorable, witty and ultimately watchable. It has been a long time since I saw that on Australian TV. Its a shame the client is such a pussy.
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As the ads are no longer embedded in the Carlton website, they are now allowed to roam on the internet virally. I am sure the supporters and the detractors will both watch with interest over the next few weeks/months..
For my 2 cents, the “Tingle” itself is great. But somewhere along the way they overcooked the idea and the films became a wee bit self-indulgent.
Hard to imagine heads aren’t going to roll.
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You can’t tell this is a marketing blog at all by these responses at all can you?… bottom line, they are rather … I can’t put my finger on it… (creepy?), and don’t put Carlton Draught in a good light at all. Although what does shine through is that the team behind the ads have had a great time and great freedom making this ad, and unfortunately this creativity was cut short by the big suits at the end of the process.. never good. I’ve heard many ‘for’ arguments for the ad, but they seem to all be from creatives cheering they have something so ‘out there’ approved/produced for such a big brand (wow it pushed the envelope etc) or people saying they like it, as it is so predictable to say that a generally unlikable ad is simply NOT enjoyable. Perhaps lets not just pat each other on the backs for the sake of pushing a creative idea that is ‘out there’ and not doing much for the brand, or being so aware you’re in a blog with some of your advertising/marketing peers, and wanting to have a ‘pro’ post to point out your insight and wit. It’s the equivalent of knowing and loving a band no-one else knows about on the indie muso scene – fake and self important
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Ant presenting to the Fosters management.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JitDWQI9qc
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The major problem is that the product (Carlton Draught) is an awful beer. Possibly worse than KB was.
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In reply to Trevor’s comment. Who is an average punter? Is that someone who doesn’t work in advertising and waits for us cool people to make his life worth living?
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What were Clemenger and CUB thinking? This series of ads (tingle, nose hair, leg, elbow) is lame. Give me – ‘the average punter’ – the Coopers’ beer ads (and beer!) that beautifully target the Saturday night SBS TV RockWiz show’s audience. Daggy-hip and wet yourself funny.
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I’m starting to think we are reading something into this ‘scandal’ that isn’t there. I would suggest the ads were pulled because they don’t adhere to the advertising standards for alcohol advertising.
my reading of it, a i should stress I’m not a lawyer, but the ads seem to be in breach of a number of the clauses including:
– Must not suggest that the consumption of alcohol beverages offers any therapeutic benefit or is necessary aid to relaxation (that Knee seems to suggest that beer can fix it, also it tells him that his way to be free is to drink beer)
– There is a clause about driving cars in alcohol ads, which states – ‘in all cases it most portray safe practices, I suggest running off the road and driving through paddock is not safe.’
– Also they ‘must depict the responsible and moderate consumption of alcohol beverages’ – I think the problem here might be the desperation with which the main characters runs/drivers/escapes a office to go get a beer is not responsible.
I think the story might be that no one checked the regulations before they made these ads, which would seem like the big stuff up to me.
Having said that, after reading the guidelines I think I understand why all beers ads are the same, the list of things you can’t do is as long as your arm.
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Very interesting Leon. One would hope the spots did receive CAD approval as it would certainly make a nice precedent for future reference.
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Leon, these ads had both Aaps and cad approval.
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