MONA - THE FARO EXPERIMENTS
Mona owner David Walsh got bored during lockdown and told us to re-open one of Mona’s restaurants. His only instruction was "make it interesting, or else.” So we came up with the idea of The Faro Experiments, where we’d experiment with a completely new theme for the restaurant every week, and guests wouldn’t know what they were getting until they sat down and signed a legal waiver giving us permission to experiment on them. My favourite experiment was Bogan Pub Week. It featured classics like a liquid chicken parma & chips, a drinks menu that was entirely rum and coke, and a string quartet that only played Cold Chisel. The most instagrammed element of the whole experience was our ‘bogan fortune cookies’, that featured AC/DC song lyrics masquerading as life advice. Good times.
RANDOM ROBBIE BLOG
Here's a timeline of everyday marketing stuff that I manage to sneak out the door. Some hits, some misses, but always lots of learnings (is what I tell the CEO).
MONA SHOP - GREYHOUND SKIVVY
We very occasionally make new products for the Mona Shop. On this occasion we decided to make overpriced luxury skivvies. For narrow dogs.
MOO BREW - TASSIE ALE
The most popular beer in Tasmania is Boags XXX. It's an ale, it's in a red can, and it's owned by an international conglomerate. So we decided to launch a Tassie owned competitor. In a red can. To keep it company.
STOUT SEASON
The best thing about winter in Hobart isn't that you have to defrost your windscreen with boiling water every morning from June until September. It's that Moo Brew releases about seventeen different types of black beer. Smile, it's stout season.
MONA FOMA - BRAND ID 2022
Mona Foma is Mona's summer festival of music and art. It's the yang to Dark Mofo's mid-winter yin. Every year we evolve the Mona Foma brand, in-keeping with our philosophy of summer fun and experimentation. This year the brand's Venn Diagram device (denoting the festival's two city structure) became even more esoteric. Things also veered away from the graphic, and got much more organic and textural - felt like the year to do it. QR codes were also involved. Felt like the year for that, too. Could you read the words? Pffft, not important, this is a Mona festival.
MOO BREW - TASSIE LAGER
We do a great basic beer that is almost entirely flavourless. Sometimes we do topical ads, sometimes we just talk about how good it looks when you sneak it into your neighbour's recycling bin. Anyway, get your mate to buy some. Then drink theirs.
ANNUS FINIS - MONA'S NYE PARTY
Mona threw a New Year's Eve party for the first time this year. Hard to believe. We didn't tell people who were playing, or what was happening, we just called it Annus Finis and sold the tickets. This was the look and feel—which felt suitably celebratory, but was actually imagery from one of our dad's colonoscopies. Yep, let's party.
MONA - ZERO TRASH T-SHIRTS
Mona produces a lot of t-shirts—exhibition ones, festival ones, dubious merchandise-y ones. We literally have rooms full of them. To reduce our environmental footprint, and to promote our commitment to sustainability, we decided our old t-shirts should become our new t-shirts. The Zero Trash movement continues.
MONA FOMA - EPØKHE SUNGLASSES
For Mona's summer music festival (Mona Foma) we had a crack at creating the most Tasmanian sunglasses ever. We got Tassie pro-surfer and designer Dion Agius to make them, took the lens colour gradient from Tassie abalone, and then shot the collateral at Tasmania's favourite summer eatery—The Dunalley Fish Market. To add to the weirdness, we cast Dion’s parents as our models and turned the whole campaign into a slightly-cooked Tassie family excursion. The campaign was shot entirely on film using a variety of cameras including a Contax T2 and a plastic Japanese toy point-and-shoot.
MOORILLA - WALSHIE'S WINE CULT
Most wine brands have a wine club. Moorilla has one too. Except it's a cult. We release a campaign every season calling for new members - promising new recruits an introductory brain washing, matching robes, and some very generous discounts. Did we mention the Walshie's Wine Cult merch? You should join. Best enjoyed by those susceptible to suggestion and grapes.
MONA - LOCALS ONLY CELLAR RAID
Visitation at Mona during border closures was pretty low. Another problem was that our really expensive wines in David's Billionaire's Wine Bunker were going off on the shelf—there were no rich Mainlanders here to pay through the nose for them. So, to lure locals back we created a new product: Mona's Local's Only VIP-ish Day of Art & Overly Expensive Wine That We Need to Get Rid Of Experience. For $83 locals got to raid Walshy's cellar, specifically the really old wines on the edge of exploding. Some were vinegar, some were legendary, most were French. It was carnage. For those that snapped up a ticket it has gone down in legend.
MOO BREW - OAT CREAM IPA
The Advertising Standards Authority would like us to clarify... Yes, Moo Brew's new Oat Cream IPA is a rich source of oats and creaminess, but no, it is not breakfast. It is not a nutritious start the day. It is not high in calcium. It will not provide a low GI release of energy to sustain you until lunch, nor is it packed with fibre. It is beer. Moo Brew recommends consuming after midday with friends, not at the breakfast table with family. We trust this clarifies the clarification.
MOO BREW - BERRY CREAM SOUR
This was a weird, sour, creamy, fruity, bright red beer we released to celebrate Dark Mofo. If you can't experiment in the middle of a satanic leaning mid-winter festival in Tassie, when can you? Feels right.
MONA SHOP - SEX AND DEATH CANDLES
Yes, we finally managed to trap the smell of sex and death in a candle. Prepare for the musky stank of leather and desperation, or a hint of moss and ivy hurriedly scattered across a shallow grave. Light one up and invite the neighbours over.
MONA - SORRY, WE'RE RE-OPENING
Like every other cultural institution, Mona had to shut its doors during COVID. It only seemed appropriate that we apologise - not for shutting, but for re-opening.
MONA - TENTH ANNIVERSARY BOOTS
Inspired by the colours of Berriedale at low tide, hand stitched by David's ex-wives, and reinforced to protect from even the fiercest chicken attack, these are the Mona Tenth Anniversary Blundstone boots. Available now at the Mona Shop. Could anything be more Tasmanian? Don't kick the art.
MOO BREW - UNPALATABLE NEIPA
Sometimes we need to sell lots of tropical, fruity beer... so we put the brewers in the ads. For extra appetite appeal.
MOO BREW - DOUBLE THE HOPS DOUBLE THE HATE
To launch Moo Brew's limited release Double IPA we decided to tell the bitter, grassy truth—this double IPA was the hoppiest, weediest, most 'flavourful' beer Moo had ever brewed. Hop monsters loved it. Everyone else? Not so much. Emmalisa, the beer drinker in the poster, had one sip, flipped us the finger, and said: "Fuck you." Indeed. Double the hops, double the hate.
MONA SHOP - DAVID WALSH HEAT REACTIVE MUG
David told us not to put his face on a mug. He should not have said that. His face is now on a mug. Hopefully David has learnt his lesson—that being, don’t tell the mug people what to do. Actually, he doesn’t know his face is on a mug because it’s a heat reactive mug. He just thinks it’s an overpriced black coffee holder. Joke’s on you, maths man.MOO BREW - FAREWELL HEF
The Hefewiezen is Moo Brew's infamous wheat-based beer... that tastes of banana burps and hangovers. It was one of the beers we launched with in 2005, and has gone furiously undrunk ever since. So we retired it. Nonetheless, we sent the Hef off in style—with some brutally honest billboard eulogies, so everyone who didn't buy it could see what they won't miss.
MOO BREW - IT'S STOUT SEASON
It's the most wonderful time of the year in Tassie. When windscreens freeze solid, it gets dark before Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and you have to wear double socks and tracky dacks to bed. On the plus side... Moo Brew Stout is back.
MONA SHOP - CHICKENS OF MONA TEA TOWEL
A few years back we invited people to bring their unwanted chickens to Mona for our chefs to barbecue at a giant community feast. Turns out that’s illegal. But people dropped their chooks off anyway. Their numbers used to be controlled by David’s cat Christ. However, since Christ ascended their numbers have exploded. And now the chickens have demanded their own tea towel. This is that tea towel.
MOO BREW - BARREL-AGED ROCKET FUEL
Someone at Moo had the ingenious idea of turning our already deadly Velvet Sledgehammer stout into barrel-aged 14% rocket fuel—delicious, sloppy, stout-flavoured rocket fuel.
MONA SHOP - LAWSUIT FEAT SKATEBOARDS
We used some of graffiti artist Topsk's illegal tags on a limited release Moorilla wine. He threatened to sue us. David loved that. As a make weight we suggested he put his designs on some skateboards, we'd sell them in the Mona shop, and he could keep all the money. Topsk was hesitant, until David suggested he call the artworks Fuck you Mona: Part One, Fuck You Mona: Part Two, and Fuck You Mona: Part Three.
MOORILLA WINERY - WILD WINTER WEEKEND
Moorilla Winery decided to hold an extremely decadent wild winter weekend at the world famous Barnbougle Golf Course. Our comms focussed on the sweet spot where inclement weather, golf and rehydration meet. We promised much mischief in the bunkers.
MOORILLA WINERY - NO HUMANOIDS PLEASE
Humans are filthy, especially when you get a couple of drinks into them at Mona. This filthiness is not good for the onsite grapes. In fact, the scale of the sex between the vines issue necessitated the creation of signage. Instead of some simple 'keep out' messaging, we went with something more convoluted.
MOO BREW - BEHOLD, DARK MUFF
To celebrate the launch of Moo Brew’s new stout in a can, we created the now infamous Moo Brew Dark Muff. Academics described it as a long awaited breakthrough in beer holding technology. Not only did it keep your hands warm when drinking, but it also introduced the thrill of getting black, pube-like fur stuck to your lips as you drank delicious beer.
MONA ROMA - SUBLIMINAL CAMO FERRY
We took the design of the new ferry up a notch. We went with subliminal camo. Once seen it can not be unseen.
MONA FOMA - RING-A-MOFO
Mofo is Mona's summer festival of music & art. The theme was 'freedom & protest'. That was our excuse for this idea - a billboard that direct-dialled Donald Trump's office at the Whitehouse. Festival goers left over 3000 messages for The Donald. After 48 hours The Whitehouse changed their answering machine message - completely removing the invitation to leave a message for The President.