Victoria Bitter (VB) fans love having an ice-cold VB while watching our national cricket team play, especially against our arch-rivals - England. With the 2019 Ashes tournament played in England, international time difference meant the two couldn’t be enjoyed together.

We created VB Tea - a new product adjacency that was born from the ingredients of VB beer and designed to quench the thirst of VB cricket-loving fans in their late-night time of need. Sold direct-to-consumer on the VB Merchandise website, the product ensured the brand stayed in the hands of every Aussie cricket fan while they watched the series.

VB, long synonymous with Australian cricket, was no longer a sponsor of the Aussie cricket team, with VB’s arch-rival having recently become the new sponsor of the team.

The brief was to steal share of conversation around the 2019 Ashes series, hosted in England. This was a conversation VB had no right to be part of.

Given the legal restrictions surrounding sponsorship rights (or lack of them in VB’s case) our challenge was to find a way to be part of the Ashes occasion without using the words ‘cricket’, ‘Australia’, ‘The Ashes’, or any player or on-field imagery.

Given the time difference between Australia and the UK, we knew cricket fans would be staying up into the small hours of the morning cheering on their Aussie heroes.

But the stamina and levels of alertness required for late-night cricket-watching aren’t compatible with beer drinking. After a couple of beers, fans would be falling asleep instead of staying awake.

So, if beer wasn’t relevant in helping fans enjoy the Ashes experience, what was?

Our answer was VB Tea - a new product adjacency that would quench the thirst of Aussies cricket fans and crucially, help them stay awake.

This was a move guaranteed to get loyal VB fans talking and to pique the interest of Aussie media commentators everywhere.

For decades, VB has gone hand-in-hand with the Australian Summer cricket season. VB is an iconic beer brand that targets men 35-55 years, and is built off a positioning of rewarding Aussies’ hard-earned thirst.

In the world of cricket, there’s no fiercer rivalry than when Australia and England play each other for the Ashes. For Aussie cricket fans, this is the pinnacle of the sport - the Super Bowl. Whether it’s being played here in Australia, or on the television late at night when the games are in England, you can bet Aussie cricket fans will be up late cheering their heroes on.

VB Tea was a way to keep our brand in the hands of these fans at a time when no one would be thinking about drinking a beer, whilst rewarding them for getting up in the middle of the night to cheer on the Aussies.

Our core audience was VB loving Cricket fans, so VB Tea had to be an authentic representation of the VB brew that they know and love.

Working with an Australian tea maker, we combined Black Ceylon tea and VB’s very own Super Pride Hops to create a full flavoured Australian tea. The mellow tannins of the black tea complemented the earthy bitter tones of the hops, delivering a patriotic cuppa worthy of the green and gold.

We then conveniently packaged them into boxes of 24, replicating a case of beer.

With the product complete, all that was left was the distribution channel, and there was no channel more perfect for this product than VB’s own merchandise store.

To promote our new brew, we had zero paid media at our disposal. Launching on the first day of the first Test, reach was achieved through PR, social content and product distribution.

Our low-budget campaign successfully stole headlines during the launch of a key competitor’s major sponsorship and thrust VB into the spotlight at a time when it had no right to play.

Results:

We sold 4.5 boxes per minute, selling out in 24 hours.

21,000 website visits (92% new customers)

The story was picked up in: Germany, Ireland, S.Korea, NZ, Turkey, UK and USA.

30+ million impressions

153 pieces of TV coverage alone

$1.2 million in earned media

798% ROI

All achieved with $0 in paid media.

Demand was so high, so we partnered with The Steve Waugh Foundation to auction off The Final XI boxes during the last test of the Ashes series. One of the boxes sold for over $400AUD with all of the proceeds going to charity.

And the most important result? VB secured 14x more mentions throughout the Ashes than our key competitor.