The Challenge‍

Archie Rose's masterbrand campaign ran two core whiskies across two creatives, both carrying the same line: Australian Whisky. Question Everything.

It had done its job. The team was ready for a refreshed brand narrative, built around simpler product and brand storytelling, and had narrowed the options down to a shortlist of headlines.

The problem was that preferences varied around the table. There were two new contenders, an incumbent with years behind it, and nothing objective to separate them.

The stakes were high because the winning line was headed for large-format billboards along the Eastern Seaboard. A driver gets a couple of seconds to understand the message, so clarity mattered.

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The Insight

Using Ideally's Communication framework, the team A/B tested both new headlines against the incumbent with whisky consumers. Each was seen by a fresh group. Results came back on Likeability, Distinctiveness and Consideration, plus open-ended responses explaining what was driving each score and where the creative could be sharpened.

All three cleared Ideally's benchmarks, which was a good problem to have. The surprise was the order: the existing tagline outperformed the team's new favourite overall.

The scores alone weren't going to make the decision, so the team went deeper.

The open-ended responses revealed something more useful. In a test, a respondent studies an ad, forms an opinion, writes about it and picks up brand context along the way. Someone passing a billboard at speed has a very different experience.

That gap made the open-ended feedback particularly valuable.

Some respondents said the creative told them little beyond the fact that the whisky was Australian. In the context of the campaign, that was exactly what the team needed to hear.

The broader category data helped frame the commercial decision. Australian whisky has come a long way in ten years, but most buyers in the category are habit-led and price-sensitive, with around 60% willing to switch brands for a good deal. The encouraging read was further down the funnel. 28% of respondents were adventurous drinkers willing to research and try something new, another 28% were drawn to packaging and feel, and 23% read reviews before buying.

That 28% is the audience Archie Rose goes after, drinkers open to exploring new products and brands. Reaching them meant leading with something distinctly theirs: 100% Australian made and grown.

The Outcome

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The team backed This is Australian Whisky and used the research as a creative brief rather than simply a verdict on which headline won.

Respondents had scrutinised the visuals as much as the copy, reinforcing that the image and headline needed to support each other rather than compete.

The test had used the existing campaign image, which was already scheduled for replacement. So Archie Rose took real consumer comments from the research and fed them directly into the photography brief for the next shoot.

The result was a clearer direction: bolder, local and premium, with a visual identity designed to feel unmistakably Archie Rose rather than another whisky brand on the shelf.

The Results

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This is Australian Whisky launched in late 2025 across the Eastern Seaboard, appearing in large-format and digital placements across major commuting routes, CBDs, shopping centres and transport hubs, alongside BTL activity.

All three headlines cleared benchmarks for Likeability, Distinctiveness and Consideration. The final decision came from understanding why consumers were responding the way they were.

Brand tracking and share of voice have both performed well across key markets.

The masterbrand test has since become a template for the Archie Rose team. A year later, they duplicated the approach to choose a headline and key visual for a new product launch, this time testing across both Australia and the US.