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McGuigan invests six-figure sum in London Underground ads
Australian wine brand McGuigan is investing a ‘six-figure sum’ in advertising on the London Underground from September to October this year.
The ‘Bring A McGuigan’ marketing strapline was launched in October 2015 with a TV commercial, radio and cinema ads, as well as three 20-second online videos
Focused on the brand’s Black Label variant, the track-side advertising will employ the “Bring a McGuigan” strapline, which was launched with a humorous televised advertising campaign in the UK and Ireland in October 2015.
“We have a relentless focus on Black Label as the engine for growth,” said Julian Dyer, who is general of the McGuigan parent company Australian Vintage in the UK and Europe, during an interview with db earlier this month.
Continuing, he told the drinks business that despite the sales success of McGuigan Black Label in the UK, particularly its red wine, the brand needed to increase its level of recognition.
“One thing we still need to fix is brand awareness – McGuigan Black Label still relatively youthful brand and its level of awareness is still significantly below some of our competitors,” he stated.
Although he said that the brand has a “loyal customer base that buys heavily and likes to recommend us,” he also noted that “we just don’t have enough people who know about us”.
This is why, he stated, the company has decided to “continue to support raising our brand awareness to drive branded wine sales, despite all the issues around foreign exchange” – a reference to losses in the UK during the last financial year.
“For example, we were on TV last year with ‘Bring a McGuigan’, and this year we will be on the London Underground with Black Label.”
Dyer then told db that the new advertisements were being shot in Australia at the moment, noting that there would be versions for the UK market, as well as another one for Australia.
He also commented that the ads would have a national reach in the UK, despite featuring on the London Underground.
“Because so many people travel through London – we are looking at 8.4 million impacts over four weeks – there is a 13% national reach.”
Although he wouldn’t say exactly how much money has been committed to the campaign, which begins in September, he said that is was “a six-figure investment”.
This is the second time the McGuigan wine brand has featured on the London Underground – Australian Vintage funded a campaign for the wine brand in January this year to highlight the fact that Neil McGuigan, CEO of the parent company, has been declared ‘Internationl Winemaker of the Year’ at the IWSC as many as four times.
Dyer said that the company has decided to invest again in track-side advertising on the tube because of the “success” of the January campaign.
“We do various things to raise brand awareness – one is by building distribution and the other is above the line investment, and, because we don’t have the budgets of FMCG drinks brands like Smirnoff, we prefer to do drip feed stuff throughout the year and the four weeks on London Underground is part of what we are doing,” concluded Dyer, mentioning other McGuigan marketing initiatives such as its work with chef John Torode, its increased presence on social media, and its regular appearances at festivals in the UK with a McGuigan branded Airstream.
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