With its unquestionable dominance of the local beer market, San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen is now targeting the Asian market by using Hollywood star, Jet Li as its new endorser.
While the new TV commercial featuring Jet Li was launched in Manila recently, its formal launch in the regional market will be in September this year, said Jane Llanes-Francisco of the Corporate Communications Group of San Miguel Corp.
Jet Li is known for his movies “Cradle to the Grave,” “Romeo Must Die,” “Hero,” “Lethal Weapon 4,” and “The One.” He is teeming up in a movie with Jackie Chan to be released soon.
With the message coming together, the ad intends to depict Pale Pilsen as the common ground for socializing or grouping together diverse Asian culture and people.
With Jet Li as its endorser, San Miguel Beer Pale Pilsen is expected to conquer new heights.
San Miguel’s gradual entry into the Asian market started in the eighties. Now, San Miguel Corp. is willing to pit its brand against other more popular global beer brands in the Asian market.
Worth mentioning is that San Miguel Corp. started the practice of promoting brands using celebrity endorsers which it began in 1969 with Pilita Corrales. Soon after, almost all products of the San Miguel Group used celebrity endorsers and this was followed by all other leading brands of products and services in the country.
Pale Pilsen’s most recent advertising campaign involved Filipino boxing idol, Manny Pacquiao, first inviting friends to a beer party, where he ended up hosting a party for the entire country. This was followed by Pacquiao’s mano a mano with ring nemesis, Erik “El Terrible” Morales. The commercial highlighted the brand’s best trait of being unique with the message “walang katulad.”
Prior to Pacquiao, Pale Pilsen was endorsed by a new wave of young celebrities that include Parokya Ni Edgar, Derek Ramsey, Francine Prieto, and Cindy Kurleto with Judy Ann Santos and Kris Aquino, who raised a toast to the good times with “itaas mo.”
In 1990, San Miguel Beer’s centennial, Pale Pilsen got the late box office king, Fernando Poe Jr. as endorser with messages that used both historical and cultural. As a result, the ad became hallmark pieces and both FPJ and SMB cemented their status as Philippine icons.
The nineties also saw the emergence of younger endorsers to reach out to younger consumers. These include Ina Raymundo (“Sabado Nights”) and Bernard Palanca (“Five Thirsty Na.”) who jumpstarted their careers by appearing in separate ads. Then too, popular Filipino billiard artists Django Bustamante, Rodolfo Luat and Efren “Bata” Reyes resulted in sports-themed ads.
The eighties saw a shift in message from the O Anong Sarap to Ito Ang Beer with several endorsers including the late Bert Marcelo; Rico J. Puno, Eduardo Domingo Jr., billiards kingpin Amang Parica and Gabriel Flash Elorde. All these endorsers were reunited in a beer garden setting with the classic isang platitong mani.