Foster’s stands by VB’s new brand positioning in spite of decline

Be interesting to see if this new campaign has real legs. Once everyone has a laugh at the different named groups what is there?

Foster’s marketing director Peter Sinclair comments in todays Fin Review shows just how wrong marketers can be. First he tells us that the new campaign “sought to convince average Australians that they are far from average”. Then he goes on to say “VB would be best described by your average punter as being a ‘bogan’ brand, but it’s so much more than that”. Well, Mr Sinclair, you couldn’t have created a campaign that was more of a celebration of averageness than The Regulars.This campaign identifies every man and their dog as a ‘regular’ [read average Aussie], but it hardly makes them feel good about themselves. It was the old ‘hard earned thirst’ campaign that made the average Australian feel good about themselves. It celebrated the working man regardless of their station in life and rewarded them with the best cold beer. The old campaign was actually aspirational. It was why you could get a VB in economy, business AND first class on Qantas. It was never a ‘bogan’ beer, but Mr Sinclair seems determined to keep going until it could be nothing else but.

Another PoV

is VB’s share eroding to a particular product of the Lion Nathan stable? or is this a natural erosion of a old staple because drinkers simply have a lot more choice and Lion Nathan are better at new product line identification and supporting consumers multiple palettes for multiple beers.

It takes a special sort of dumb to lose market share on a product like VB

Maybe Reevesy. Or could it be that advertising like XXXX Gold’s just works that much better?

Big reason for me not drinking this beer is the fact that they have reduced the alcohol content a few times, now tastes like water!!!!

i think reevesy is making the most sense here.

I am in agreeance with Reevesy … VB Gold did nothing but go head to head with XXXX Gold (which in its own merits has been doing an outstanding job in its homeland of Qld and beyond). VB Raw – now that was a great idea … not really!

Lion Nathan’s strategy on the other hand – bring out Summer Bright Lager – going head to head with Corona who is basically the biggest threat to most beer brand esp across summer … though have priced it at around $35 p/ctn compared to the $50 p/cnt for Corona. Simple maths will tell you that a trusted local beer with a highly competitive product + pricing will increase SOV!

Good work LN – CUB have to start looking at their product development as a beginning point.

mmmmmm….beer….

I thought the ad was rubbish from the beginning…….VB used to be a good beer, drunk by real people………..now its just an embarassment

what’s the insight, the strategy, the differentiation, the compelling reason for why i should by VB with this Droga5 campaign? I see none.

The VB brand, is bogan, and that is why they needed to change the positioning – but the “Hard earned thirst” tagline gave me a compelling reason to consider it as an alternative. The problem with the earned thirst campaigns (in my opinion) is that they identified the end consumer too much with the Tradie market.

Average ad and beer that tastes like swill….

I have seen loads of VB adverts over the last 4 months. Whenever I venture into a bottle shop I see VB everywhere and in bars / pubs VB is in my face.

I do not drink VB because it is full of additives and preservatives and gives me the hangover from hell(.) Even Tooheys New have brushed up their beer ingredients, which is now made additive free.

Has anyone stopped to think about the quality issue here? If VB tastes awful, (which is does); surely drinkers are bound to give it a swerve?

Secondly, well done Pure Blonde and Hahn Super Dry- what an excellent brand – oh and they do not taste half as bad as VB either. (European beers are still way better mind…) Aussie brewers should take a leaf out of Germany’s purity Law book and beer in Australia could be celebrated.

One last thing: I was at a BBQ on the weekend and the last bottles swimming around in the bottom of the Eski were VB. We started with a case of Becks, Pure Blonde and some mug brought a case of VB (It annoys me because that person drank most of the Becks…)

Perhaps doubling the marketing spend is not the issure here – the focus on quality should not be forgotten. Give the people what they want :- a decent tasting beer, at a reasonable cost. Make VB taste nice and then market that message ‘New and improved’ ‘fresh tasting’ ‘free from additives and preservatives’

My impression of VB is that it is swilled by Bogans…

There’s nothing wrong with the product.

The ad campaign sux, not because its soooo bogan, bogan’s a beeeg market, it’s just the wrong market for VB. they can slag another $30 million till the VBees, they won’t sell another drop.

A lot of negativity & rightly so, although poor old Mr Sinclair is copping it, what about Droga 5, or are they beyond criticism? Got a sneaking suspicion we have a campaign developed & sold to a client by a bunch of imported beer drinking hoopdies who are so far out of touch with the average Australian beer drinker that they may as well come from Pluto.

Could it be that Aussie drinkers, who are now faced with a much better selection of decent beers than they were 10 or even 5 years ago, are just moving away from what surely is Australia’s worst beer?

Personally, I would rather do a Bear Grylls than drink it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtIG4TuVnvg

Jamie, you wanna try Southwark!

Another who agrees with Reevesy .

BTW the headline for this article: “Foster’s stands by VB’s new brand positioning in spite of decline” is a little confused, or maybe it is I who is fuzzy. I don’t see how this new campaign is a new brand positioning. Looks like they are still targeting the same audience with the same product to me…

This is a classic case of a campaign written and approved by people who have no idea who a VB drinker is. In the process the campaign produced insults real VB drinkers with comical (not likable) parodies of ‘working class aussies’. These drinkers are not dumb-asses, they are actually more like ‘real australians’ than the highly overpaid wankers who are destroying not only this brand but our admiration for regular, hard-working aussies who just want a good beer. This piss take of a commercial doesn’t actually celebrate the regular aussie it actually belittles them. Peter Sinclair is up with that dumbass marketing director currently destroying the Commonwealth Bank with an equally pea brain strategy! If I was a shareholder I would take legal action and sue these buffoons for wrecklessly ruining both of these brands net value!

Parading manscapers through the streets is as effective as catapulting a stag into the clouds. It doesn’t sell beer.

Now pour me a bourbon sweetheart.

Take a test and drink a German beer, then an Aussie Premium beer and then a VB. The taste and smell declines from the first to the last.

That is a fact. I know loads of mates who drank VB 10 years ago and do not now. Why? because there are better tasting beers on the market…

I have to agree with Bruce Beer, VB was my beer of choice for many, many years, but like so many other old brands, has lost taste. VB and Melbourne Bitter were great bitters, too bad CUB (Fosters now?) has forgotten how to make beer.

Titus, Bruce & Bruce’s mates,

Although I’m potentially contradicting my earlier point, perhaps your tastes have matured in the last 10 years and, more importantly, your wallets have got fatter.

Per HammerTime’s point, you’d struggle to find those tasty German beers for the $35/case you can pick up VB for. There are still, I assume, plenty of Aussies who won’t/can’t spend more than that. If VB is declining in that market, then they really do have something to worry about.

I’m a white collar Sydneysider – I’ve always drunk VB and I liked the ad. I’m also a huge fan of VB Raw and the only thing that stops me drinking it more when I’m out is that it’s not stocked at enough bars and clubs.

I am a Raw fan as well, hailing from Melbourne I also find it a bit hard to find at times but it’s always stocked in my fridge. My VB hating mates have taken a liking to it over the Pure Blondes they used to drink.

I think the extensions have been a good idea. Raw and the mid-strength have brought some freshness to the brand. VB hasn’t changed while blokes have and that’s probably the biggest issue.

Perhaps, dare I say it, VB is damaged. The bottom of the barrel at the BBQ is the perfect example and I’m sure not an isolated one. When people don’t want to be seen to be drinking it, it’s a much harder job than battling pure choice / willingness to try something new. Crown has the same issue?

I can see that the campaign tried to celebrate the Aussie bloke again, but when the Aussie bloke doesn’t like the taste vs other beers it’s an uphill struggle.

Adwrighty needs top go back to ad school. Anybody who thinks this campaign tried to celebrate the Aussie bloke is in the wrong business. Suggest Adwrighty reads Mike 3:11. Lets stop making excuses for this rubbish. Its a bunch of blokes marching down a street behind a few banners. End of story.

I worked on the ground on a poorly conceived promotional campaign for an expensive boutique beer (owned by a large mutlinational however). We were sent out to pubs and bottle shops in God-knows-where to spruik ‘fancy’ beer to people who only drank VB. Given I don’t move in a working-class, regional milieu, I was amazed at how many people drank VB (since my friends don’t). But I am here to tell you there are plenty of people who wouldn’t dream of drinking anything else. Even if it tastes like shit. And that’s who VB need to reach. Not sure how though – it really was another world out there, away from city bars where people pay $10 for an overpriced European beer.

VB’s decline is due to Carlton’s arrogant treatment of its target market in recent years. Their marketing, production and even their packaging departments are sub standard in the extreme. Carlton’s teatment of the Carlton Cold brand is a classic methodology of greed driven by calculator accounting and symptomatic of Carlton’s total loss of contact with reality. i.e. “If we slash the alcohol content we can save a packet. We’ll convince them it tastes no different and after a short period we’ll hike the price up above what it was with the higher alcohol content. Now the packaging costs can be slashed and even if the cartons are falling apart it won’t matter. A few broken bottles won’t worry them. Look, we just made $20 million more profit next year according to my calculator. Let’s do it!”
Idiots. Morons. Wake up Carlton, your stupidity alarm is going off.

I have no idea why they are not selling as much VB anymore it’s probably a combination of things including the advertising – “The Drinking Beer” what a line. I thought the ad was insulting to the target market – it seems to take the piss rather than celebrate these people.

I think the marketing director is confused about the average Australian. The term bogan is largely used as a derogatory word to describe people who have opinions and aspirations that are different from those of us in the marketing and advertising industry. People who we’d class as bogans don’t see themselves that way. They are just a group of people dealing with the realities of the lives they have. For example I can’t drink a beer every night or I can drink Heineken three times a week etc.

The problem with many marketers is they seem to be fixated on selling their products to anyone except the people who buy it. These guys are the perfect example – we want our beer to be better than a working class beer – primarily because the marketing teams are full of superior people who see the market through their own eyes rather than the eyes of the consumer. If they had concentrated on the target market I suspect they’d have been ok.

I also suspect the marketing director is only making bigs ads to make himself feel important and worthy. I have a strong suspicion most of the drinking decisions are make in the bottle shop or bar. Pricing and merchandising would be more important but not as glamorous.

Belinda is right some people just choose to drink VB and it was clearly an eyeopening moment for her. What happened to understanding the consumer. We all know you can’t do that in a focus group.

it won b and t campaign of the year

stu . . you’re then man. Good sum up.

I think comments 31 and 32 are the most interesting part of this conversation. There seems to be an increasing gap between what we adwankas think is good and what gets results. Are our instincts collectively off or are we making more and more ads for ourselves? Maybe both.

One big point you’ve all missed….VB hasnt had the ‘Hard Earned Thirst’ tagline for 10 years! Have a look – the brand has been in decline for 12 years or more and in that time there’s been the Kebab ads, the orchestra one etc etc. This isnt about ads…it’s about a fundamental change in the beer market and the impact on one brand that was ridiculously large at over 35% of all beer back in the 1980’s.
Its certainly not the current marketing directors fault either…I’d be going back to anyone who worked on VB from 10 years ago and say why didnt they do something…anything? All you’e seeing now is the need for major change and how hard it is to reverse such entrenched views. Does Ford sell as many V8’s a it used to? Does Qantas still have the market share it did in 1985? Does Coke still have the same share of all drinks given the rise of energy, sports, waters etc? Do VB, Tooheys New and XXXX still have the share they had in 1980? Of course not – markets change. To talk about whether a tagline change a few months ago is the driver here is just absurd. Open your eyes people – too much industry ranting from people who place far too much importance on adland.

Carlton Draught is rubbish also….the ad’s might be popular but the drink is just as bad as VB

Doubled Mktg spend, discounted the product and accelerated volume decline…better send their Mktg team Saturdays herald!

Tony is right – markets do change and the beer market has changed heaps over 10 years but, to have gotten rid of the Hard Earned Thirst positioning is still wrong. What Fosters have failed to do is make that positioning relevant to today. In the old campaigns hard work was rewarded and, as others have said before me here, celebrated. The old Hard Earned campaigns were actually aspirational. The Regulars is not. I don’t want to drink with a bunch of losers. I want to drink with honest hard working blokes just like me. That’s what VB used to represent and its still as relevant today as its ever been. The XXXX Gold people must be praying to god every night that VB just keeps doing what its doing. So, Tony, you’re right in many ways, but that doesn’t excuse the incompetence at Fosters.

I think Stu’s hit it on the head

Regardless of what you think of the beer, it remains the market leader, so there’s plenty of people drinking it. “The matter of fact I’ve got it now” ads were perfect, bang-on, appealed directly to the market. This new batch, by trying to be “clever” is merely patronising the market. You see it all the time these days – the “intelligent” middle class trying to laud their wit and wisdom over the working class. You dig ditches for a living and you drink VB? Well, you must be stupid and be a bogan. Please!

sorry this is a little late, but it does relate [to a comment [halfway up the page] – the other banks must be pissing themselves with laughter at the continued Commonwealth Bank campaign – how to destroy a brand in a couple of easy steps…

One of the first rules of advertising that every junior gets drummed into them – don’t talk about yourself [ie your ad agency]. Now of course, we all know that this is all a ‘piss-take’ of the agency, but half of the punters don’t know that, and the other half must be saying ‘who cares’… the joke of a culturally out-of-touch US ad agency just doesn’t work!

Classic case of Mktg Director getting woo-ed by hot-shot overseas creative shop with a big reputation, and falling for it, if you ask me. The other banks must be laughing all the way to the …

Ashley, apart from your post being somewhat off topic, did you miss Westpac’s banana video and recent stories about customers so angry at the rate rise, they switched banks?

Which Bank became the largest source of mortgages as a result? The CommBank.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.a.....-lsbd.html

They must be shaking in their boots.

Ahsley, but isn’t the whole “our ad agency’s so dumb” the latest creative? Commonwealth bank are certainly leading the charge, Doritos were doing it, and Maggi to name a few. Whatever your media – there’s nothing more lame than the “in” joke.

I just want to speak of the quote chosen to print:

But a new report by Citigroup sent to clients stated that recent efforts to revive the VB brand including brand extensions into the low-carb sector with VB Raw and mid-strength with VB Gold, as well as a renewed marketing focus “have to date generated little in the way of success”.

I think it’s important to note that VB has been in decline for over 10 years. five years ago the decline was MASSIVE and that is really when Fosters starting looking at it.

Since then it is declining at a slower rate and more recently has been almost flat.

Will it ever get into growth? I think that is the main point. I guess only time will tell.

Completely off the VB topic, I am amazed that the agency handling NAB hasn’t come up with some brilliant ad campaign to attack those other banks including Commonwealth for gouging the mortgage belt by raising interest rates above those set by the Reserve Bank. A warm fuzzy “nice guys” approach could effectively swing a huge market percentage to NAB…as long as they don’t start doing the same thing.
I have to say that Westpac really are a bunch of dicks so their agency’s response is not surprising.

I’m a committed beer drinker with no marketing knowledge whatsoever. My take is this: The problem with VB is inside the bottle. They use additives and GM ingredients. When I realised this, I switched back to Tooheys as my regular, with Coopers for special occasions. And for all you know-it-alls that drink imported: wise up. Beer is a fresh food product, like milk. It needs to be produced locally and drunk fresh. In a can, it is good for 6 months, beer in a brown bottle has a 3 month life, and a clear bottle is only good for a month. Imported beer is laced with sulphur so that it doesn’t go off so quckly. Use your nose next time you open an imported. If you want to drink German beer, do it in Germany.

VB had a real Australian authenticity that resonated across a wide demographic many beer brands would have killed for with the no nonsense ‘hard earned thirst’ campaign.

Then they started doing flippant joke ads about mustaches etc and now the latest make fun of people campaign.

That’s what happens when you do ads trying to impress other ad people.

This campaign blows… It’s arrogant, patronising and disconnected from its customer. A really bad idea executed expensively and poorly. Sinclair’s comments suggest that he is a classic text book marketing theorist

Don’t worry Paul (46), a good 95% of the people working in this industry have no marketing knowledge whatsoever.

Yes, Stephen is quite correct, Paul. In fact it is a prerequisite of getting a job in this industry. The other 5% are burnt out hacks who need the money to support their VB habits…

Maybe VB should sponsor Australia Day in NSW…then nobody will be able to buy it and drink it on that day if the NSW Police have their way!

Ok, so where were all the critical reviews of the campaign / approach when Droga5 were boing lauded for the work?

https://mumbrella.com.au/vb-unveils-the-regulars-and-ditches-the-hard-earned-thirst-7493

Whether or not the campaign itself has been successful, it’s interesting that all it takes is one little report to rally the ‘told ya’ haters.

I can tell you that they were most probably on the CampaignBrief website.
However, since the strict moderation of negative comments, the traffic seems to have flowed in this direction.
I think that they guys at Droga seem to have made quite a few enemies over the years…

Also, to answer the question on changing the tagline, the old one clearly has lost is relevance. The beer declined at the same rate as people moved away from manual work. Rewarding yourself with a beer is not relevant to youth, we know that for sure with the whole ‘Now’ generation.

It could have perhaps been made more relevant, reward yourself for nothing, reward yourself for something stupid?

But is that compelling?

I’m going to wait, as this is obviously the first ad in a long term campaign, so I want to see where it goes before I cry blue murder.

I don’t think you’d be allowed to make negative comments about Nobby or Droga on Campaign Brief, or indeed any of their friends.

– VB tastes awful (.)

– I can pick up a case of decent European beer in Dan Murphy’s (brewed free of preservatives etc) for under $40 – smells lovely and hoppy and is a joy to drink.

– There is far more choice than ever before on the market nowadays

– The ‘Aussie bloke’ has changed from 10 years ago. More and more fashionable, trendy Aussie males, as opposed to Ocha Aussies referring to their girls as ‘Sheila’s’ (these guys do exist and wear ‘wifebeaters’ and toe tector shoes and fish off the wharf, sport long beards and drive utes – ermmmmm – I think the trendies call them bogans. Oh and bogans enjoy drinking out of long necks and will drink VB regardless of advertising about the product (it is engrained, although they are a dying breed.))

As society becomes more fashionable, healthy and is given choice the big giant brands will diminish further. Anyone read ‘The Long Tail’ – it kind of applies here. Products are no longer local – you can get whatever you want these days… (Although big institutions are trying their best to hold on to their share as best they can: Airlines, News publishers, Beer manufacturers…) Banks have it good because generally you borrow local to fund a loan or a mortgage – so they have you by the throat, especially in Oz where the competition has been gobbled up by the big boys.

OK off to the bar near work for a Heineken, followed by a nice red wine from Chile 😉

@Paul (12.33pm) I agree that the problem is inside the bottle. Mate, Heineken is now brewed in Australia under licence. i didnt know about the sulphur part. I certainly rate some of the Aussie premiums. Little Creatures, James Squires, Blue Tong are all ok. i still think a decent hoppy European blasts them away though. Oh and if you were served a pint of Coopers Pale in the UK you would send it back for being cloudy 😉 – Still a bbq favourite though…

Agree Adam, but still doesn’t excuse campaign – a march that ends nowhere – a bunch of losers we laugh at not with – nothing aspirational – a joke at the expense of regular people. And whilst the beer world might’ve changed significantly, certain values haven’t – and recognising hard-work and rewarding it with not any beer, but the best beer are two of them. VB were crazy enough to compromise the taste by changing the formula to save some tax,but don’t go and compound that mistake by changing the one thing that did work for VB – its advertising. And yes, this problem started long before The Regulars.

Falling market share is somewhat unavoidable when you start with a dominant position in the market. Very few brands can maintain such strong positions over the long term.

The very strengths that take a brand to the top, become a burden that prevents re-invention when faced with new, more inventive competitors. This brand baggage can weigh even a Titan like VB down.

The fact that the beer tastes like crap is a mere detail!