The Stroh Brewery Company has just launched a summer campaign to help it capture a bigger share of the Ontario market for its Old Milwaukee brand.

The campaign has started with four 60-sec. radio spots and includes a promotional ‘Hook the Big One’ contest.

Each commercial features an interview set in Milwaukee with a resident or a Canadian visiting the u.s., to build on the Canadian belief that gas, beer and other products in the u.s. are less expensive.

The contest is being promoted with one of the commercials as well as on special packaging that features a giant pike on the front of the box.

Those who enter have a chance to win one of four four-day fishing trips to Lloyd Lake Lodge in Saskatchewan.

The campaign is the first Stroh work from Promanad Communications of Toronto, the agency hired by the brewer in March.

Stroh’s u.s. agency, Ross Roy of Detroit had also been handling Canadian advertising since Ian Roberts Ross Roy folded at the end of 1994.

John Driggers, director of Canadian operations, Stroh International, says the company is focusing on the Ontario market.

‘We’ve been selling in Ontario for years and would love to do better because it is the largest beer market in Canada,’ he says, adding Quebec is the company’s strongest Canadian market when measured by either volume or market share.

Drigger says Old Milwaukee is the number one imported brand in Canada and at $3 less for 24 the beer occupies the value segment of the market.