C-T begins £10m XXXX relaunch

Carlsberg-Tetley is relaunching Castlemaine XXXX in a £10m brand overhaul.

A new £5m TV ad campaign through Saatchi & Saatchi goes on air this week, resurrecting the 15-year-old strapline “Australians wouldn’t give a XXXX for anything else”.

The relaunch was first predicted in Marketing Week (January 21).

It is the first time the Australian lager has advertised on TV for three years. The campaign is part of a brand revamp which also includes a sponsorship deal with the Australian rugby union team and promotional support.

In the new advertising campaign, the brand hangs on to its sexist roots, but aims to rejuvenate its laddish appeal by using younger actors in more modern settings.

A XXXX spokesman says: “The old ads, though popular, tended to lean towards older, die-hard Australian characters. There is certainly a conscious effort to make the brand more appealing to younger drinkers.”

The first execution features a young Australian man who, having slept with his best friend’s girlfriend, is offered a can of XXXX. He turns it down in horror because he can’t bring himself to drink his best friend’s lager.

The second execution shows a guide dog racing through an Australian town dragging its owner behind it. The dog runs through a doorway, which turns out to be a local pub, just in time for its owner to order a pint of XXXX before last orders.

C-T, which brews XXXX under licence from Brisbane brewer Lion Nathan, plans to make the brand the official beer of the Australian rugby team, the Wallabies.

The agreement will run until 2002 and will include the forthcoming Rugby World Cup. Repackaged cans will feature the Wallabies logo and updated bar fonts.

Doug Clydesdale, C-T’s head of marketing and take-home sales, comments: “The XXXX brand retains a powerful and distinctive image which has been under-exploited in recent years. This was the logical step in the sharpening of our brand portfolio.”