Tooheys gets a bold new look & ad campaign

By Editor on April 25, 2023

Lion is celebrating surging sales for its classic beers by giving its Tooheys portfolio a packaging refresh and new ad campaign.

The enthusiasm for classic beer has been gathering pace since the first pandemic lockdown of 2020, when retailers began reporting a swing away from craft beer towards mainstream brands such as Tooheys New and XXXX Gold made by Lion, and Victoria Bitter and Carlton Draught made by Carlton & United Breweries.

James Brindley, then managing director of Lion Australia, told the Australian Financial Review that in tougher economic times ”people tend to gravitate towards established brands they know and trust”.

“While pubs and clubs are closed, we’re seeing well-known and loved classic brands like Tooheys New and XXXX Gold performing well through the off-premise channel,” Brindley said.

With lockdowns well and truly over, Lion has unveiled a bold new look for all its Tooheys brands, designed by creative agency Weave.

As the first major update to Tooheys core packaging since 2015, Lion said the contemporary new appearance showcased Tooheys’ core brand assets, while still nodding to the brand’s rich 154 year history.

Chris Allan, Head of Core Beer Marketing at Lion Australia, said: “Tooheys is a brand that has over a century and a half of stories under its belt – so there is a challenge in moving too far away from the past and our rich legacy. We feel the new packaging pays tribute to our proud heritage as well as modernising in a way that allows the core brand assets to shine.”

Mick Boston, Head of Design at Lion Australia, said: ”Weave and Lion worked incredibly collaboratively on the Tooheys project. It is such a fine line refreshing an iconic brand like Tooheys, retaining all the well-loved memory structures whilst setting the brand up for the future. We’re confident we have created a look that honours our impressive past but keeps the brand moving forward.”

Creative Director at Weave, Dan Cookson said: “This wasn’t about throwing yesterday away, we needed to both respect the past and have the courage to move forward, reintroducing it to a new audience while also rekindling the love held by existing Tooheys fans.”

Tooheys Extra Dry required a different approach since it has always been slightly different to the rest of the trademark and it is a clear-bottled variant. The established date has been replaced with a product descriptor and finished with the recognisable white diagonal slash that has been a defining element of the beer since its invention in 1994. The stag has been used to connect the Extra Dry product name with the Tooheys wordmark, elevated above the stag.

A sleek, colour-refresh has also been applied to the product label for Tooheys Old, replacing the previous maroon logo to its original all-black colour scheme, complementing the refreshing Dark Ale.

The new modern design has been rolled out across the entire Tooheys portfolio, including Tooheys Old, Tooheys New and Tooheys Extra Dry.

The new campaign to accompany the packaging update is a spin on the classic “I feel like a Tooheys or two” jingle from the 1970s. The ‘I feel like a Tooheys’ jingle was written by MoJo (Allan ‘Jo’ Johnston and Alan ‘Mo’ Morris) in 1979.

Johnston makes a cameo appearance in the TVC as a cheering onlooker in the crowd.