MARKETING: NEWS

Carling cancels buskers
Carling has ended its innovative busker sponsorship on London Underground (LU) following a three-year partnership.

The brand’s marketing platform is heavily focused on music, including signature sponsorship of the Reading and Leeds Festivals as well as six high-profile Carling Academy live music venues around the country.

The busker campaign involved creating 30 branded performance areas in 22 of the busiest stations on the network – it was initiated in 2003 when LU won a legal ruling allowing live music to be played in stations.

Brand director Andy Cray explains that the decision not to renew the deal was made in order to “allow concentration of marketing efforts on supporting the national launch of Carling C2, the new 2% mid-strength lager”.

This year Carling will focus its efforts on extending the portfolio. However, says Cray, it “will continue to be the lager brand most associated with live music”.

Highland spring supports Scot
Andy Murray, the rising star of British tennis, has signed a major sponsorship deal with Highland Spring. The deal forms the centrepiece of the brand’s Hydration campaign, and aims to drive mineral water consumption among youngsters. Since bursting onto the international scene in 2005, 19-year-old Murray has risen to 17th place in the world rankings.

Highland Spring marketing director Sally Stanley explained: “Andy is a great role model as he shares our passion for getting kids active and healthy. We hope our association with Team Murray will encourage more children to take up active sports like tennis and drink water instead of sugary soft drinks… As a world-class tennis player of his stature and appeal, this sponsorship provides us with another global platform to showcase the brand.”

Murray’s first competition sporting the logo was the Qatar Open, where he was defeated in the final. Commenting on his “winning spirit”, Stanley – along with the Great British Public – will be hoping that he can eventually go one better at Wimbledon.

Shipshape whiskies
Maritime activities are proving to be a powerful platform for niche whisky brands to effectively market themselves to a specialist audience. Both Old Pulteney and Benromach single malts are taking part in events related to sailing.

Old Pulteney gained good exposure at last month’s London Boat Show, as the brand appeared at the Classic Boat exhibit. It has also lined up sponsorship deals with four prestigious sailing events in the coming year.

Meanwhile Gordon & MacPhail’s Benromach brand has been named as sponsor of the Glasgow Clipper in this year’s Round the World Yacht Race, which begins in Liverpool in September.

Fullers takes pride in London marathon
London pride has been named as the official beer of the Flora London Marathon, having signed a three-year sponsorship deal commencing with this year’s race on 22 April.

The brand will benefit from extensive exposure before and during the race, which attracts almost 40,000 runners, a crowd of hundreds of thousands and a television audience of millions.

“The Marathon is an icon of our capital city and, as London’s leading brewer, it is highly appropriate that we should be supporting it,” said Fullers’ managing director John Roberts. David Bedford, race director, added, “While we wouldn’t necessarily recommend beer as part of the marathon runner’s training regime, London Pride is certainly the thing with which to celebrate your achievement.”

Other news
J2O has launched a new TV and cinema advertisement based on the strapline “If H20 were J20”. Britvic hopes that the strategy will reach 84% of 16- to 34-year-olds. Marketing director Andrew Marsden said, “We want to further build brand equity by communicating the personality behind J20”.

The Bluetongue Brewery in Australia came up with an intriguing formula to generate excitement around its latest launch, Bondi Blonde: celebrity non-entity Paris Hilton was flown in to promote the brand. The six-day visit is rumoured to have cost the brewery A$440,000. However, it generated 163 press articles and more than 2,000 TV news items, reaching an audience of 16 million.

Pepsi is adopting a radical new packaging strategy in an effort to win over more young consumers. The concept involves using 35 different designs based on the themes of fashion, sport, music and cars, and will be supported with in-store merchandising and across-the-board advertising. The new designs will arrive in the UK in March.

Australia Day was marked by a major promotional push for Foster’s. The campaign was rolled out in over 3,000 pubs and clubs nationwide, from 8 January and ran until Australia Day on 26 January. Brand manager Phil McTeer said “Foster’s has achieved iconic status as the definitive Australian ‘amber nectar’ and is ideally placed to champion Australia Day events in the UK.”

© db February 2007