The pub with no sport
Issue 11 | June 2009
Agency
Rapp Sydney
Creative Team
Creative Director: Paula Keamy
Production Team
Production managers: Brett Griffiths, Fiona Halloran
Other Credits
Business management: Nick Cleeve, Cam Dunnet
Date
February 5th 2009
Background
The brief was to sell AUSTAR sport (a pay TV package) to Australian country pub owners.
Idea
The high price point for AUSTAR sport is a significant barrier for pub owners. To break through this, the agency needed to convince them that AUSTAR sport is absolutely essential for attracting customers - as essential as beer!
To do this, they took the iconic Australian song “The pub with no beer” and rewrote the lyrics so the song became “The pub with no sport”.
The original track is a hugely well-known and respected Aussie pub song, sung by Australia’s most popular country music legend, Slim Dusty. For the target, this would have added weight to the message. Would Slim approve of a pub with no sport? No way!
Results
The campaign broke even after 2 months and will deliver an ROI of 6.5:1 in the first year.
Our Thoughts
In a creative brief, defining the target audience can be more important to the team than the proposition. The moment you know you’re talking to pub owners in out-of-the-way towns like Dingo and Rooty Hill, you know who they are and what they’re like. You may not be into country music yourself but they are so you start having ideas accordingly. The art director had fun dramatising the problem with sombre browns and the back-in-time approach but then so too did the copywriter. “The smile on his face begins to contort when the barman says sadly this pub has no sport.”