Tiger and Drax Project partnership uncovers local music talent

Music is often referred to as the great uniter. It’s this power that DB Breweries aims to channel in its latest Tiger Beer campaign, Tiger Uncover, designed to build brand strength with its audience while helping out the local music industry after a tough few years.

If there’s one thing that Tiger and DB Breweries know for certain, it’s that Tiger Beer drinkers love to enjoy their beer with a tune or two.

That’s why this year the company has collaborated with one of New Zealand’s most popular bands, Drax Project, to mentor up-and-coming Auckland-based synth-pop duo imugi (named after a mythical Korean dragon) as part of the Tiger Uncover campaign.

As a key brand for DB Breweries, Tiger has been on a growth trajectory, and is a key pillar of the company’s strategy and brewery.

To supercharge this growth, the Tiger Uncover campaign centres around the collaboration between imugi and Drax Project, and follows their journey creating the track ‘solace’ together which will become the summer campaign soundtrack, and hopefully spark imugi’s rise to success.

Cormac van den Hoofdakker, Senior Marketing Manager of Global Brands at DB Breweries, says the campaign is designed to continue the momentum Tiger is already enjoying and appeal to its Millennial and Gen Z audience. 

“Music plays such a huge role in many generations lives, but particularly the younger generation. Fifty percent of them are going to festivals, a third of them are going to rock or pop concerts, and almost as many go to electronic music concerts. A huge amount of their passion ties up with music.”

Working with Universal Studios from the start, it was important for Tiger to choose a band that embodied the ethos of the brand Cormac says.

“When we looked at what Tiger the brand is, it’s very much around carving your own path and challenging the status quo. When we put those two insights together, we came up with the Tiger Uncover campaign.”

It began where any good campaign begins – with its audience. Cormac says understanding the consumer was crucial, discovering what the younger generations are into, what’s important to them and what makes up their lives.

“We did some research to be clear on our consumer, what do they invest their time and energy into and what’s important to them – and that’s where the music piece emerged from.

The next step was identifying a suitable band to be the lead artist for the campaign, a band that embodies what the Tiger brand represents. 

“We liked [Drax Project], because although they went to jazz school, they spent a lot of their early days busking in Wellington trying to find their own path. They are a great personification of what Tiger is all about.”

Engaging with Universal Music from the start, along with Saatchi & Saatchi, Tiger set out on a journey to bring its audiences passion for music to life.

“We went on a bit of a journey with Universal Music to look at who would partner with them, and talked to Drax Project about a band, duo or artist that would be an unlikely collaboration.”

For Drax Project, the opportunity to collaborate with a new band was one they were keen to take up.

“We knew it would be an exciting, challenging project and Tiger were keen to kick start some kind of musical thing after the last few years that musicians have had,” says Drax Project drummer Matt Beachen.

It was important that Tiger found a unique band for them to mentor.

“We wanted to find someone who is up-and-coming, a little bit different and maybe not in your traditional music space,” says Cormac.

Eventually they landed on imugi, who had been playing smaller gigs and venues, making them the perfect choice to help break through.

“It was an honour to even be considered,” says Yery Cho of imugi. “It was just about waiting to see if we were good candidates for the job.”

“A stand out experience was being with the Drax boys in the studio. It was a little bit intimidating listening to [their]tunes because they are amazing song writers and producers,” adds bandmate Carl Ruwhiu.

Another key motivator for the campaign came from DB Breweries’ desire to help an industry emerging from a tough couple of years due to festivals being called off, or bars being closed. “One of the biggest challenges for bands is visibility,“ says Cormac. 

“A big platform we have been able to bring into this is profile. We’ve got a large digital video, social and out of home (OOH) campaign ready for summer. The profile we can give to them over summer is something that most up-and-coming bands could only dream of.“

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