The Aussies call it beeah, you can call it Foster''s

Anita Sharan
25 September 2000

Foster's, the beer from Australia, is doing it again. After its "Foster's, Australian for beeah (beer)" advertising campaign running on television for two years, it's launched a new one that's as wacky, spoofy and as Australian as the first one.

The new campaign, which started airing in India very recently, is a spoof on the Sydney Olympics 2000. So you have this bunch of people going for the "Opening ceremony", landing up at this place whose front door is shut. They hammer on it and it takes some time to be opened. Inside is a pub, into which all these people surge.

Or take the one where these guys are seen heads-and-necks-deep in sand, their bodies straight out, at a slight angle, feet soles facing the sky. The text-over says "Javelin". Or cut to two swimmers swimming fast and powerfully, their arm movements synchronised, much as any trained swimmers would be. The screen widens out to show them being chased by a shark, and the text-over says "Synchronised swimming".

Adding to the library of Foster's "How to speak Australian" award-winning campaign which has been running across the world, the Olympic spoof series is made up of nine ads totally and includes others such as "Discus", "Shot putt" and "Hundred meter dash".

Executed in the same spirit as the "How to speak Australian" campaign that Indian television viewers are by now familiar with, the new campaign does bring a new sense of noticeability to the brand, Foster's, at a very crucial time. The brand is to launch in New Delhi next month. For Foster's India Limited, Delhi is a very important market and marks the forward march for the brand in its bid to spread across the country.

Market expansion January 2000 saw Foster's launching in Goa, though the company had tried to enter the state from almost the beginning of 1999. The issue behind the delay was the Goa government's asking for an import pass fee if any liquor company did not have a manufacturing facility in the state. "Add to that the fact that Maharashtra charges an export pass fee if the alcohol brand is going out of it into another state. The two levies would have made Foster's price in Goa unattractive," says Pradeep Gidwani, the 36-year-old managing director of Foster's India Ltd.