Carlton Dry reveals it’s imported from a place called Drylandia in new work via Clemenger BBDO
An exotic provenance story is often the key ingredient in successful beer advertising. With this in mind, Carlton Dry’s new brand platform, launched this week via Clemenger BBDO, welcomes Aussies to Drylandia – the home of Carlton Dry.
The new campaign, Imported from Drylandia, introduces an eccentric, faraway world with flying long horses, mystical portals, roll-neck skivvies, and its number #1 export, Carlton Dry. It’s a parody of our own world – if it exists here, it exists in Drylandia. Only it’s a little crazier. Drylandia invites a new generation of drinkers to an absurd land.
The stunning visual world of Drylandia was built over a 12-week collaborative production process that spanned across the globe, including creative agency Clemenger BBDO, production company Revolver, visual effects experts BaconX in Copenhagen, and Swedish director Andreas Nilsson.
Says Nicole McMillan, general manager of marketing at Carlton & United Breweries: “We wanted to create a campaign that evokes the same sense of fun that Carlton Dry does. What better way to do that than to imagine the distant land of Drylandia.”
Says Richard Williams, executive creative director, Clemenger BBDO: “There’s something about beer that comes from an exotic place. We thought it was a wonderful opportunity to remind drinkers that Carlton Dry comes from an exotic place too…. sort of.”
Imported from Drylandia launched on Sunday across TV, radio, social, digital, OOH, cinema, gaming, sponsorship and activation.
Client: Carlton & United Breweries
General Manager of Marketing: Nicole McMillan
Head of Contemporary Brands: Ben Eyles
Marketing Manager: Stephen McWilliams
Brand Manager: Felicity Smith
Agency: Clemenger BBDO
Production Company: Revolver
Director: Andreas Nilsson
Managing Director/ Co-Owner: Michael Ritchie
Executive Producer/ Partner: Pip Smart
Producer: Caroline Kruck
DOP: Stefan Duscio
Production Designer: Damien Drew
Editor & On Set VFX: Scott Stirling
Costume: Matt Stegh
Casting: Peta Einberg Casting
Post Production/ VFX: Bacon X
Creative Director: Jonas Drehn
VFX Supervisor: Thomas Haas-Christensen/ Jonas Drehn
Concept Artist: Ditte Marie Ludvigsen
Executive Producer: Eliana Carranza-Pitcher
HoP: Cilie Kragegaard
Senior VFX Producer: Lars Wagner
On Set VFX Supervisor: Jonas Drehn
Compositors: Jacob Carlsson, Kai Hauswirth, Lukas Remis
CG-Lead: Thomas Haas-Christensen, David Ryberg Lessel
CG Artists: Arthur Dalvig, Asger Langhoff, Julia Forsman, Mike Pedersen, Rickard Didriksson, Tobias Ipsen
Digital Matte Painting: Emma Bielokostolská
Colourist: Sam Gilling
Conform: Oliver Wozny/ Søren Knudsen
Sound House: Rumble Studios
Composer: Jeremy Richmond
Partner/ Creative Director/ Sound Engineer: Tone Aston
Partner/ Executive Producer: Michael Gie
102 Comments
I really love this.
As an avid watcher of advertising, this has to be one the worst I have seen. Does not inspire one to have a beer.
Could not agree more. Extremely expensive stupidity and nothing to do with Australian beer.
This doesn’t look like something made in Australia, in a very very good way. Epic.
Kudos for getting this over the line! Beer’s back baby.
credits – I’d be wanting my name on this work – fo sure.
Brilliant and brave work.
One of the best I’ve seen in a while.
Not sure what the haters are on about
Everyone else seems to like it.
Roy and Chris and all the team should be proud.
Wrong uns. Excellent job you sweet wierd men.
Big props for getting this made, even bigger props for limousine horse. Love it.
Clearly a longterm platform too. Hats off.
I’ve got no idea what this is saying about the beer. I know it certainly doesn’t make me want to reach for a dry.
The flurry of agency positive comments will now be inundated with negativity as the industry responds.
Some of us just appreciate good work.
LOL ‘The industry’ – if you’re anonymously hating on even half decent work on Campaign Brief you can’t be much of a player in ‘the industry’.
But I’m genuinely into this.
Looks like an epic post budget, just a shame it went off shore. Are VFX companies dying a slow death in Australia? Is VFX cheaper in Denmark?
Not cheaper, but they do have creative concept artists working as part of the team which is a bonus? I’d say the director never came to Australia either so was more comfortable with the company he’s repped with in Denmark to do the post so he could more easily oversee it? Also rather than thinking firstly about vfx companies, go to the source, what if directors and production companies are dying a slow death here when it’s preferable for agencies to hire an overseas director to phone in (remote direct) a creative opportunity like this? Then the question also falls to almost all production company rosters being mostly made up of foreign directors with overseas reels? Easier to promote what’s already been done with massive budgets and more progressive creative than to foster, trust and promote talent in your own country?
No. Not an Aussie beer ad.
Wonderful weirdness. Thank you.
If you want to know if it’s a good ad or not, go to the collingullie pub in the riverina and ask the farmers there (who all drink Dry) what they think of it.
Dude gets woman to open his beer.
An elaborately told, half-well disguised, no less troublesome, story from the 80s.
I thought the same. Noticed too the ugly status signifiers. Nevertheless I liked almost everything else about it.
A Chris and Roy special. Go on gents!
Love it.
the product is dry yet this makes me so wet
Mr. Plow
Yes! Nice one Chris and Roy.
So sick, so jealous!
So many companies in Australia could have done this.
What do you expect when it’s an offshore director? Technically an Australian vfx company could have done this, whether they could have or more importantly would have put the time in to creatively do this I’m less sure? Pull up your socks.
Ironically, the movie Gentleman Broncos was about someone ripping off someone else’s ideas.
Spending more time in the comment section than the concepting. Personally this doesn’t have any humor and doesn’t make me want a beer. Nice craft and production etc but as an ad for beer it’s a stinker
But I doubt it’ll sell a single case of beer
Or has the whole fantasy, made-up land thing been done to death in advertising. I know it gives you permission to go all weirdy with the execution but what’s it actually saying? The beer is dry because it comes from Drylandia? Extraordinary. You reckon the target market is going to buy into all this? Unlikely. Unless they’re in advertising it seems.
I remember huddling around a Mac G3 to squint at an ad for Tooheys Extra Dry sometime in 2003. The one where a tongue went on a mission to retrieve a beer from a house party. I think we were wearing black skivvies and rimless blue glasses, which were the style at the time. After the ad finished the CD laughed and said ‘Ha! Get me the suit who sold that in!’ We all laughed and excused ourselves to the bathroom. We emerged with a sniffle for some reason. Little did we know that super-weird ad would go on to be one of the greatest of all time. And little did we care, there were $2 jugs of Midori Illusion to be drunk at Blueberries and Finneas the junior Art Director had just bought a Lotus Elite, which his girlfriend crashed before he’d had a chance to get insurance. He didn’t even seem to care about that either. I wonder if he cares about this ad.
Say more, please.
Bravo u weird bastards
And sick music too Jez
Just when you think Aussie ad people are getting behind fun and different work the sad ones turn up to pull it apart.
I’m willing to bet your books are as strong as your opinions.
The beer of choice for 20 somethings at parties. They are going to love this. I do too.
I’ve always wanted to know what goes on it Chris & Roy’s brain. Well done fellas x
It’s weird. It will definitely stand out, which is always a good thing. Not sure what it says about the beer or what sort of affect it is aiming to have on consumers other than ‘Carlton Dry exists’, but maybe the brief showed a declining unprompted awareness and that was what they were tasked with. Wouldn’t it be nice though if we gave each other the benefit of the doubt rather than presuming the worst
(said as a strategist who worked on Carlton Dry for 3 years and would not wish that upon my worst enemy)
Where beer ads have been going wrong all this time: ‘Not sure what it says about the beer…’
Chapeau! Excellent stuff
Amazing, great to see some ambitious work from the Aussie market, this cuts through! Love Love Love Love
The only thing I recall from seeing this on TV is the end line ‘Drylandia (not a real place)’. Why would you need to add that?
Be very interesting if an (anonymous) source would leak the brief. As says says it stands out. It’ll get attention. So the first and most important part done. Attention for what is the next question. What meaning, if any, does it convey? Punters don’t work too hard to decode this stuff so what they’ll think is probably: a bit weird, a bit 70s sci fi fantasy art (maybe), sort of amusing. They may well not even register that what they’ve just seen is Drylandia – at least not to begin with. Doubt they’ll reject it, doubt they’ll take much from it either.
My guess is a big part of the brief is that Carlton Dry is a tired brand for tired old (well, 35+) guys and it needs to not look so daggy.
Is the ad daggy? No. Probably job done, for now.
has the most chaotic brand platform energy of any beer in australia. WHAT ARE THEY? WHAT IS THIS?
God bless Chris and Roy – Beers Back – very Jealous we didn’t make it. xxx
I like it
But a shameful move to outsource the production talent.
I love this!
Stoner advertising meets Adventure Time for adults… hats off.
Bastards.
Confused by all these commentators calling out ‘Chris & Roy’ when there’s no credits listed here. Clearly a bunch of Clems staffers astroturfing?
Strange angle to take. I think you’ll find they’re a popular creative team and people want to give them credit where it is due.
Gives me Procrastination Place energy (with it being Clems), but digging the weirds.
Agreed.
Feel like this is another weird for the sake of being weird/different.
Which makes it more of the same for me.
I guess it’s at least entertaining. And kudos for getting it made and over the line.
The substance matches that of the beer for me though.
Approved
Clems going into their own back catalog for ideas now, wow!
https://vimeo.com/373052598
What is this?
Why do the brand custodians insist on the avoidance of building long term brand assets?
Where’s the strategy?
So many questions.
CUB CMO is EBI advisor and contributor.
I suspect she knows what she’s doing in terms of DBAs.
😉
Just why alright, strategy what is that?
Crap beer and a crap ad, doesn’t anyone in ad land do anything good anymore? Same old shite from the big end of town…
Care to share some great ads you’ve seen recently?
I’ve never wanted to drink a beer less.
Very interested to see how this platform expands out and endures for at least three years. Otherwise what’s the point? Will the weird dry-world dry up? I guess we’ll wait and see.
Love this! Never seen anything like it.
World class work. More of this please Australia. Also as a UK creative who spent time in the US, I just don’t get the anonymous vitriol that pops up. Reeks of an agenda. It does the industry a disservice.
It’s giving
https://campaignbrief.com/wotifcom-takes-aussies-to-wond/
or did this entire industry just drive past an oil refinery?
So dope. The Ob-surd-aa-dee.
Beer is Fun, these are Fun
Simple Different strong tone and product truth.
It’s beer don’t over think it, people already know what it is and does , just give them a fun reason to like and remember you.
The rest should be handled by distribution along with in-stone and on premise.
This is good, this will work, if the client sticks with it and keeps going.
Can’t wait to see what else comes out of Drylandia.
When a product has no discernable functional benefits aside from tasting like soda water that’s had an old tea-bag dipped in it you may as well be distinctive and silly. Nicely crafted and suitably silly
https://campaignbrief.com/carlton-dry-reveals-its-imported-from-a-place-called-drylandia-in-new-work-via-clemenger-bbdo/
I like it. Smooth and weird. Wish we’d had this kinda money when we did V.
I prefer Fordlandia
Fordlandia. Is that anywhere near Camryville?
This is a question to the Australian directors that actually live in Australia.
Ego’s and competition aside. Remember this place is anonymous anyway.
Since 2022 and the supposed end of Covid, what percentage of you have worked on as many jobs or more precisely shot as many days per year as you would normally do or would expect to in progression from previous years in Australia alone?
How have those jobs compared in quality, creatively and in budgets to previous years?
Think you’ll also find it’s their agency policy not to actually credit the people who actually make the work. Which is awful.
around 50 positive comments. that means clems got their entire remaining staff to comment. twice.
Lol. You obviously have an agenda. This is world class. Jealousy speaks volumes.
a woman serving a man a cold beer… how imaginative.
I agree
Here for the old farts having an absolute conniption over something that’s stupid and fun. You all need to have a panadol and a lie down.
The extent of jealous people working in Australian advertising is a pandemic, and it’s namely unproven white entitled blokes with chips on their shoulders. You are bagging out work that is often wonderful, refreshing and entertaining – work that is created by proven creative and business professionals. Do you understand what’s actually missing in this equation? Take a look at yourself. Lads, you are going nowhere nice and slowly.
https://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/9096/Pure-Blonde-Brewtopia
Spent the last few days with world class creatives gathering in Sydney for AWARD and they seem to like it too. It feels fresh and brand driven. Well done to everybody who worked on this. There are many insecure creatives who are relegated to being the trolls of our industry – because they’re just not good enough to be anything else. Nobody good wastes time trying to cut others down. Once again, brilliant work. Congratulations!
CGI vomit.
You know an ad is good when a few nobodies are spending so much time on the blog trying to convince you it isn’t. BRAVO!
Why do those who criticise this work open themselves up to personal attack – bitter, talentless, old, white, male trolls etc.?
Why put it up if not for comment? Moreover, if it works (commercially or in terms of awards), comments here are irrelevant anyway.
You’re having a wank.
Pleasant, but ultimately vacuous.
This isn’t going to move the needle on anything that matters.
Like beer sales, for example.
It’s a good ad because it’s different and I’m sure it’ll work. But might I ask, just as we’ve relegated the casual sexism and racism that seemed to permeate the cultural sphere, can we do the same with the ageist nonsense? Lot of ‘old’ shaming going on in here. And ‘white’, ‘stale’, ‘male’ too. Just because someone doesn’t like something it means they’re old? With the implication that it means ‘out of touch’ and not of worthy opinion? This industry has enough of an age problem as it is. And there’s plenty of LinkedIn-style rhetoric getting about that points the blame at ‘old dinosaurs’ of the industry. It’s tough enough for those over 40 out there without perpetuating the idea that everyone who is older than that, is somehow not worthy of a point of view. Or a job, for that matter.
Takes a pretty common ‘boys humour’ trope and brings it back for a bit of fun with a new audience. For a client as large and with as many cooks as CUB I’d say great job to Clems for getting something half-dece across the line. Certainly better than the Dry ads that have come before. Would love to see how much further the original concept took it.
Now let’s just pray that CUB sticks to their guns and actually tries to build some brand equity with this new angle… probs not tho.
Beer advertising without a single rational benefit in it, which is how it should be. Planners and beer don’t mix.
“Be like the beer” was a way better line.
How’s the Clem’s circlejerk in here?
Post a link to your book. Must be a ripper. Heaps of ads better than this one?
Cool ad, saw it on tele and it’s hard to forget. Good job to all.
Bad Boy Bubby!
Crap ad from female perspective.
I almost never drink alcohol. Face goes numb after half a glass of wine. Not susceptible to alcohol advertising – or any drink advertising, normally.
I hate advertising, and almost all ads (Aldi ads, and MYOB excepted). I can often be heard swearing ‘liars… stop boring me to death… fvck off and die! ‘ at ‘One Simple Thing’ and ‘Weh You Ha-ave Had Your Eye On That Hah Shjee Spess Fo A Whi’, and ‘HIee Geary!’ and all the other tedious atrocities.
Enter Drylandia, land of my dreams. Never has an ad made me thirsty before. I’m longing for it to be my hand that bottle drops into at the end.
The ad must be almost perfect: it delights, from the sound to the imagery to the beautiful, compelling characters, and it’s made me want that beer. Amazed. Congrats; if you’ve overcome my resistance the rest of humanity should crumble like gutless new so-called ‘Arnotts’ ‘gingernuts’. Thank you for not boring the living crap out of me.
Still I don’t like that he’s the quaffer and she’s the barmaid. Yes. We notice your misogyny.
The production values in this ad are over the top and it’s beautifully crafted; I love eye candy. But? Who is it targeted at? Who is the market for Carlton Dry and will they be interested in flying horses with passion fruit or lemon pop “beer”? I’m not a hater, I just think people lose track of the point of advertising which is to sell more stuff and sell enough stuff to justify the budget.