THE CHINESE lunar new year is proving to be a bonanza for Tiger Beer, which has jauntily claimed the title “official beer to the Year of the Tiger”.

The brand has been eagerly building up steam for its year-long campaign since it launched an 88-day countdown on Nov 18 with a large digital display on the Guinness Anchor Bhd (GAB) building along the Federal Highway in the Klang Valley.

Centred on the concept of “winning”, Tiger Beer has tied into growing economic confidence with the tagline “Celebrate Winning in the Year of The Tiger”, said Sean Koh, marketing manager for Tiger Beer, in an email interview on Feb 4.

The campaign’s objectives are ambitious. Tiger Beer plans to “own” the Year of the Tiger and “to be the first brand consumers think of during the festive season”, said Koh. All this ties into Tiger Beer’s larger goal of growing its market share of the local malt-liquor market from 32.5% to 34%, he added.

Already, hypermarkets around the Klang Valley are reporting shortages of the special 26-can Chinese New Year (CNY) pack of Tiger Beer, said a spokeswoman for GAB, the local distributor for Tiger Beer, yesterday.

In fact, a certain hypermarket has even advertised the availability of Tiger Beer to attract shoppers as the beer was sold out in many stores.
While the prices aren’t fixed, the special pack retails for less than it normally would outside the festive period, she added.

Another ongoing CNY promotion is a consumer contest called Tiger Win Gold Promotion which offers solid gold Tiger coins and a grand prize of two solid gold bars worth RM280,000. The grand prize draw is on March 3.

Throughout the year, Tiger will be running a 360° campaign that includes print, on-ground activities like the Tiger Dance team, periodic trade promotions and an online campaign that includes a website and social media activities. The agencies involved are creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi, digital agency G2 Direct Interactive, events agency G2 KL, and PR agency G2PR.

“Not only is this year a year of recovery, the last tiger year — 1998 — was when the entire Asian economy turned around and recovered from the Asian financial crisis. It’s going to be a year of opportunities,” said Koh.

This article appeared on the Media & Advertising page, The Edge Financial Daily, Feb 11, 2010