Lion has revealed record-breaking launch volumes for Iron Jack, making it Australia’s biggest beer launch of the last decade.
Since its launch in September 2017, Iron Jack has sold over 15 million litres, more volume over the same period than established beer brands like Crown Lager, Stella Artois and James Squire 150 Lashes1.
It is already one of the most available beer brands in the country – distributed in over 5000 bottle shops and 2000 pubs across Australia.
It was also announced as one of the Hottest 100 brands in Drinks Trade earlier this year.
Lion’s Contemporary Portfolio Manager, Amy Darvill, said: “When we launched Iron Jack, we wanted to make a beer for hard working, down to earth Aussie blokes. Blokes who love their dogs and the outdoors. Their initial reaction to the beer has been really encouraging.”
Lion notes that after the same amount of time in market more than twice as many consumers have trialled Iron Jack as Great Northern Super Crisp, which Darvill says is a direct result of where the brand has focussed its investment.
“We made an early decision to make sure we supported our customers with good trial mechanics to get the beer in people’s hands, because we know once this happens the beer stands up on its own.”
Darvill said Lion has doubled the media spend behind Iron Jack in order to further drive awareness of the brand.
“We’ve had a really great launch but we know it’s only early days and we need to keep up the positive momentum. Our original media strategy was to start regional and work our way in towards metro areas. But given the strong start we’ve significantly increased our media spend to include all capital cities, as well as still supporting regional areas.”
Iron Jack will have one of the largest media spends of any beer in the country in 2018 – comprised of a large scale TV, Radio and Billboard campaign which began in March and is centred around the beer’s message of ‘Thirst Crushing Refreshment’.
Iron Jack is available in 330ml bottles, 375ml cans and on tap.
