Yellow Tail wine finds way around Anheuser-Busch's Super Bowl ad exclusivity
Hollywood director Harald Zwart calls from the Arctic Circle, where he is filming a Norwegian World War II movie, to talk about filming a Super Bowl ad for Yellow Tail wine.
"I’ve got to say, it’s easier to control 1,000 reindeer than one kangaroo,” Zwart tells Paste BN Sports.
Roopert, who’s really an animatronic kangaroo, is the star of the 30-second spot for Yellow Tail. Not everyone will get to see Roo, as he’s known, because Anheuser-Busch has exclusive category ad rights for the Super Bowl, boxing out other alcohol brands. So Yellow Tail took the road less traveled, buying local ads in 70 TV markets that it figures will cover about 85% of the United States.
"It’s easier to complete the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course than it is to buy a Yellow Tail Super Bowl ad,” says Tom Steffanci, president of Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits, U.S. importer and marketer of the Australian wine. “It took eight months, but we did navigate it” — at a cost higher than if Yellow Tail had been able to buy a national ad, which this year goes for somewhere in the neighborhood of $5 million for 30 seconds.
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"Your accountant will never tell you it’s a good idea,” Steffanci says. “There’s a leap of faith involved. But we think the reason the Super Bowl is so expensive is because it’s worth it.”
The wine category hasn’t had a major Super Bowl presence since the 1980s, according to Advertising Age, which cites Bartles & Jaymes in 1988 and Paul Masson Vineyards in 1980.
The idea of the Yellow Tail marketing campaign is to convey the notion that the brand is about fun and the wine can be served at events more typically associated with beer — such as the Super Bowl. Selling this concept are Yellow Tail Guy, a straight man in a yellow suit; and Roo, a comic kangaroo who DJs and flips burgers. The spot shows them at a rooftop party, at a barbecue — and at the beach, where they run into Aussie-born supermodel Ellie Gonsalves in a white bikini.
"Want to pet my Roo?” Yellow Tail Guy asks.
"Sure, I’ll pet your Roo,” says Gonsalves as she nuzzles the kangaroo’s chin.
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"We think it’s done playfully,” Steffanci says, “and it’s done in a way that I think most people will find funny and endearing and not crossing the line.”
Zwart, who directed 2010’s The Karate Kid, says he and the actors forgot after a certain point that Roo isn’t real: “It’s a bubble of imagination we all have to step into.”
The trick is making an ad that’s memorable but in a way that consumers remember the brand. “With a kangaroo on the label and a kangaroo in the commercial,” Zwart says, “I think we’ve gone far with that already.”
Zwart’s current work, 12th Man is a film about Jan Baalsrud, a Norwegian resistance fighter in World War II. Zwart says it is not such a distance as one might suspect from feature film to 30-second spot.
"On some level,” he says, “it’s the same thing. You have to be just as clear in your message.”