By Maria Nguyen
IT IS no longer just a parochial battle between the Apple Isle's northern Boag's drinkers and their southern Cascade-consuming counterparts. The stoush between Australia's two biggest breweries has moved onto the mainland, and is about to get interesting, and expensive.
The fierce rivalry between Lion Nathan and Foster's cranked up another notch after Lion Nathan threw tens of millions of dollars into Boag's kitty as it takes on Foster's Cascade to be the Tasmanian beer brand of choice on the mainland.
In a case of "Who's the most Tassie of them all?" the two brewers are primping and preening in front of the mirror that is mainland Australian beer drinkers.
The group marketing manager for Foster's premium beers, Ben Summons, said Lion Nathan's aggressive play heralded an increased intensity in the longstanding rivalry.
"Boag's under Lion Nathan has now slipped into a broader rivalry between Foster's and Lion Nathan. It's no longer just a duel between Boag's and Cascade," Mr Summons said.
For Lion Nathan, one of the chief attractions of acquiring J. Boag & Son from San Miguel 12 months ago was always the untapped growth potential of Boag's Draught - especially as a tap beer beyond Tasmania.
"It's a product that needs to be taken to the mainland," said Arno Lenior, Lion Nathan's director of premium brands.
The roll-out of Boag's Draught on tap to more than 400 pubs and bars across Australia began in the middle of last year, backed by the tongue-in-cheek internet and email "Pipeline" campaign that sold a message of the beer's "freshness" being piped straight from Tassie to the tap of your local mainland pub.
This was followed a few months later by a brand overhaul that led to new labelling and packaging for Boag's Draught and the announcement of a $25 million expansion plan for the J. Boag & Son brewery in Launceston to accommodate expected demand and growth.
Earlier this year, Boag's launched its "Fresh from Tasmanian waters" campaign, again tapping into a provenance marketing strategy that played on Tasmania's heritage and its associations with freshness, purity and an unspoilt, pristine idyll.
The aim: to own the Tasmanian beer of choice tag, long and tightly held by Foster's Cascade brand in Australia's mainland states. It was clear that 12 months after purchasing Boag's, Lion Nathan was firmly hitting the accelerator - all the way towards the mainland.
The Boag's trademark has grown 6 per cent since it was acquired by Lion Nathan, which, according to Nielsen AIS, spent eight times more on advertising for Boag's ($7.4 million) than Foster's spent on Cascade ($900,000) in the 12 months to November 2008.
Mr Summons said he was not surprised his rival was taking a provenance approach in marketing Boag's. And if he was worried, he was not showing it.
Instead, he said Cascade as a brand was already so synonymous with Tasmania's virtues of purity and freshness that Foster's was moving ahead and "evolving" the Cascade brand's communications message. This new message will be unveiled next month when Foster's launches a multimillion-dollar national push for its premium product, Cascade Premium Lager.
So while Lion Nathan will be pouring money into owning the Tassie beer of choice tag on the mainland, Foster's will be looking to tackle its rival in the premium lager market, where Boag's Premium outsells Cascade Premium Lager two to one.
AC Nielsen figures show 3.7 million litres of Cascade Premium Lager was sold last year, compared to 7.5 million litres of Boag's Premium. "It's important to understand the strategies of battle at this broader level of Foster's and Lion Nathan," Mr Summons said. "We'll be pushing lager beer strongly this year, while Lion Nathan is playing for the regular beer market."