How creative testing helped John West reawaken a brand icon

It’s rare for an ad to transcend television screens in the way John West’s iconic ‘Bear’ campaign did in the early 2000s. One of advertising’s earliest viral hits (estimated to have been viewed an extraordinary 300 million times by the middle of the decade), the surreal, documentary-style creative platform was first launched in the U.K. by Leo Burnett London. A localized Australian sequel hit the airwaves in 2007 and achieved instant success, helping establish some of the category’s most memorable and enduring brand assets.

However, by 2026 John West encountered a common challenge facing established brands: despite strong awareness and a history of iconic advertising, the brand was increasingly viewed as a functional category leader. The challenge was to reignite the emotional distinctiveness that had made the ‘Bear’ platform so memorable in the first place, while reinforcing perceptions of the product’s superior quality. Breathing new life into the brand’s iconic bear and fisherman assets, the characters were relaunched under the classic “It’s what John West rejects that makes John West the best” tagline.

While the foundations were already there, the challenge was to be faithful to the original storyline while evolving the platform for a present-day audience – retaining the familiarity and recognizability that had made it iconic in the first place, but at the same time finding new and interesting ways to keep the campaign feeling fresh, fun, and distinctive.

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Creative Testing Stage #1: Animatic

Working with Melbourne-based creative agency Clemenger BBDO, a new idea was conceived and an animatic to faithfully bring it to life was prepared. Before committing precious dollars to production, the brand partnered with creative effectiveness company Cubery to put the idea to the test: assessing whether it delivered against the core objectives of eliciting a rich and intense emotional response, while simultaneously tapping into latent memory structures around John West’s superior product quality.

The initial testing confirmed strong brand linkage and emotional resonance but also identified that audience engagement plateaued before the final reveal. To unlock more from the idea and ensure it could match it with the best of the best, there was a clear opportunity to build greater emotional engagement as the story unfolded.

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Creative Testing Stage #2: Revised Animatic

Building on the learnings from stage one, a revised animatic was developed and tested through the Cubery platform. The narrative was refined to heighten the impact of the ‘rug pull’ moment, with the aim of shifting the emotional response from passive and laid-back to a more active level of engagement – getting people to really ‘lean-in’.

The testing among a nationally representative audience of Australian seafood consumers revealed that it had the intended effect. While the more overt rug pull introduced a slightly more provocative ending, the upside was clear. Revealing the fisherman (cheeky grin and all) beneath the realistic bear costume proved highly amusing, with the unexpected twist significantly increasing the ad’s stopping power and memorability versus the initial iteration.

The findings demonstrated that increasing surprise and comedic tension strengthened memorability without compromising brand linkage or product messaging.

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Creative Testing Stage #3: Finished Film

To ensure the strengths of the revised concept carried through to production, the finished film was tested as a final validation step. Testing revealed that the final piece successfully built on the strengths of the animatic, in-line with recommended tweaks following the second research phase. The natural scenery, bear animation, character expressions, and comedic timing all combined to compound the impact of the reveal (while helping to further cement John West’s status as the market leader). Overall, the final production demonstrated very strong potential to cut through and powerfully reinforce John West’s fun personality and superior product quality.

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Key learnings

The three-phase research process demonstrated how the most sophisticated marketers are using creative testing as a tool for refinement and optimization, not just validation.

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By testing early, John West was able to identify where an already-strong idea had the potential to work even harder, refine the emotional payoff before committing to production, and then confirm those improvements carried through to the finished film – using these learnings to inform future work. The result was a campaign that balanced consistency and evolution, preserving what made the ‘Bear’ platform iconic in the first place while ensuring it remained relevant, engaging, and commercially effective for a new generation.

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