Australia: Foster’s talking figurine returns to push up company’s sales season

Foster's Australia has confirmed the talking figurine of cricketer David Boon - credited by Foster's Australia for getting Victoria Bitter (VB) back on the radar of younger drinkers - returns later this year.

More than a quarter of a million 10cm talking dolls were given away with slabs of VB last summer.

Earlier this year Foster's chief executive Trevor O'Hoy said the Boonanza promotion and Carlton Draught's Big Ad - the sequel of which begins next month - helped lift Foster's beer volumes.

But, as much as he was a hit with beer drinkers, VB's sales continue to decline.

After volume rises in January and February, VB's share in June of the national full-strength beer market dropped 1.7 percentage points to 33.6 per cent on a like for like basis, according to ACNielsen.

The new Boony promotion will start before the First Test in late November and run for longer, as Foster's attempts to get more mileage out of its investment.

Foster's Australia would not comment on the identity of Boony's mate or what they would say, though speculation is rife it will be Merv Hughes or Rod Marsh and, perhaps predictably, beer and cricket their conversation. "Get me a VB, the cricket's about to start" was Boony's catchcry.

Boony has been a winner with the creative advertising community, picking up a Gold Promo Lions at this year's Cannes ad festival and narrowly missing out on a Titanium Lion after the jury's decision to move the award away from integrated campaigns to standout work that redefined advertising.

Anthony Heraghty, managing director of George Patterson Y&R Melbourne, the agency behind the promotion, said: "There's a whole generation of drinkers out there who don't know the meaning of a hard earned thirst and to get them to reconnect with the brand was a pretty big achievement."

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