Lowe Bull CT dreams big for Hansa Pilsener

Hansa Pilsener, with its kiss of the Saaz hop, is well known for being the beer that is “refreshingly different, a beer that is never ordinary”. According to creative director Kirk Gainsford, Lowe Bull Cape Town's new TV commercial for the brand is a compelling and inspirational expression of this positioning.

The Lowe Bull Group's strategic arm, OIL, developed the planning insights and positioning that underlie the new campaign.

“Hansa has always been a brand that is refreshingly different,” says Mosidi Seretlo, marketing manager for Grolsch, Hansa Pilsner, Redds and Brutal Fruit. “In the late 90s, the Hansa creative platform was the refreshingly different accountants. Today, as we near the end of the noughties, Hansa as still refreshingly different, appealing to the man who thinks differently and is progressive, but who still remains connected to who he is. The challenge now was how can Hansa tap into this?”

For Lowe Bull, the answer was to create a commercial which would resonate with the consumer who doesn't want to be seen as ordinary, yet who also doesn't want to get so far ahead that he feels alienated from his friends.

“Everyone wants the best for themselves,” comments Gainsford. “Everyone has exciting dreams, hopes, desires and aspirations. When it comes to beer, there is no need to settle for the ordinary.”

Enter Vuyo, a boerewors cart owner for whom not even the sky is the limit when it comes to dreams of growing his business and having larger-than-life experiences with his friends.

The entertaining, fast-paced commercial opens on a downtown street corner, where Vuyo, serving boerewors rolls in his cart, begins his extraordinary daydream.

He pictures his business being franchised first nationally and then around the world, becoming such a success that international news anchors are soon feting ‘Vuyo's Wors' as “an overnight sensation”.

Before he knows it, he's appearing on daytime talk shows and Jamie-Oliver-styled cooking shows, drinking Hansa and watching over the chef busy preparing a boerewors roll. From a hot dog eating contest in Japan where the traditional dog has been usurped by boerewors, to unveiling the first plane - Air Wors One - in his new airline fleet, Vuyo's dream just gets bigger and bigger.

Yet through it all, Hansa Pilsener remains his beer of choice because just like him, it stands out from the rest. Aboard his luxury yacht, surrounded by his friends, Vuyo pulls himself a Hansa Pilsener draught, as the voice-over asks: “Nobody dreams ordinary, so why drink ordinary beer?”

The commercial wraps with Vuyo and a bottle of Hansa floating, weightless, inside a spaceship, while his jubilant friends and family watch the live feed in his Gogo's lounge.

“The key message of the commercial is to ‘step out of the ordinary', to not just settle for the mundane,” says Gainsford.

Seretlo concludes: “Well done to Lowe Bull and director Peter Pohorsky for bringing the Hansa brand vision alive without losing the essence of what Hansa has always stood for.”

The talent behind the ad:

• Creative director - Kirk Gainsford
• Art director - Cameron Watson
• Copywriter - Simon Lotze
• Production house: Plank Productions
• Director: Peter Pohorsky
• Production house producer: Di du Toit and Karla Peetz
• Agency producer: Caz Friedman