Stephen O’Kelly talks to Michael Cullen about the resurgence in Guinness
Guinness and great ads go hand in hand. Going back to the days when enamel signs pushed the ‘Guinness is Good for You’ idea on enamel signs through to the Marketing.ie Ad of the Century with the islanders waiting patiently on the kegs’ arrival by currach as expectation turns to the relief of Tá siad ag teacht, consumers have been won over by the iconic brew.
After Joe McKinney danced around the pint to Perez Prado’s version of Guaglione and Rutger Hauer played cool, Diageo tried a new twist with Guinness ads. The advertising moved to UK agency HHCL which came up with the ‘Big Pint’ and more crude messages than a Donald Trump rally. Tom Crean, Wild Horses and Swimmer earned wide acclaim.
A need to promote hurling sponsorship saw Irish International bring Guinness ads back to its roots. But the truth is a broader, more contemporary focus for the brand meant engaging with a new romance – less Aran jumper, more Tommy Hilfiger preppy. The pitch turned to Made of More, with BBDO and Irish International creating stories with serious intentions.
Theme talk: Guinness Made of More ads such as ‘Clock’, ‘Cloud’ (above), ‘Never Alone’ and ‘John Hammond’ are designed to get people thinking and talking about the beer in a new way. Diageo saw net sales of Guinness rise by one percentage point in Ireland in the six months to the end of December, the first increase after six years of decline.
Made of More began in 2012 with two nebulous, ‘Clock’ and ‘Cloud’. ‘Clock’ was shot in the Czech Republic and cost Diageo €6.5 million to ‘challenge the ordinary’. A cloud’s odyssey is shown as Danny Elfman’s score from Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands fairytale plays. The idea of the ad is to encourage people to get the most out of life.
The Rugby World Cup prompted two Made for More ads. ‘Never Alone’ featured retired Wales back Gareth Thomas and his story about the demons he faced in coming out as gay. South Africa’s Ashwin Willemse starred in ‘The Right Path’ and how he escaped a drug-dealing adolescence in Cape Town to find rugby and win 25 caps for the Springboks.
Despite Guinness being a favourite tipple of sports fans, the Rugby World Cup (RWC) posed a major challenge for the brand. As official Six Nations sponsor, Guinness had to protect its share of mind against RWC backer, Heineken. AMV BBDO London produced the two Made for More ads, showing how teammates are there for them when the need was greatest.
To carve out our own moment ahead of the tournament clutter, at 9.15pm on September 9, Diageo launched the Gareth Thomas TVC with an AV roadblock, airing at the exact same time across 25 TV channels in Ireland and 37 in the UK, on cinema, social media and digital video. In that one evening alone, the ads reached almost one in two (47 per cent) Irish adults.
But Diageo knew a strong launch would not be enough to keep Guinness relevant throughout the tournament. Momentum needed to be maintained to keep the brand top of mind, while engaging tournament fans. A real time marketing team, consisting of Carat, AMV BBDO and WHPR was created. A scenario plan with potential outcomes and events was hatched.
Media planners and digital specialists stood by to activate media around the right Guinness moments as quickly as possible. Media and creative were adapted and optimised each week of the RWC. But the magic of live sport is such that it inevitably required Diageo and its agencies to think on their feet, with a full team on hand right throughout the tournament.
When considering a possible script for the next phase of Made of More, Mark Nutley and Pat Hamill, the Irish International creative team responsible for the John Hammond jazz idea, looked at a lot of options. But they kept coming back to Hammond. Nutley knew about his role as a Columbia talent scout, signing the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
But when they read up about how he brought the best black and white jazz players together in the Thirties, they thought it a great story. Hammond stood up and walked out of the radio station WEVD when they refused to allow black musicians into the building. “We knew that gave us the dramatic device to make a great Guinness Made of More story,” Nutley said.
Stephen O’Kelly has over 19 years FMCG experience. As marketing director for Guinness Europe and a member of the Diageo Europe marketing leadership team, he leads Guinness innovations, bringing new beers to the market, as well as developing the Made of More proposition and positioning the brand as a digitally-enabled Generation Y model.
Singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas, who stars in the John Hammond ad (above), was plucked from the ether. Yet the daughter of a Greek father and a Jamaican mother embodies the image of what Guinness is today. Stephen O’Kelly is excited about the new focus on making Guinness as contemporary as possible, like staging young creative gatherings at the Open Gate Brewery – see O’Kelly speaking at gathering, below.
Guinness grew by 2.1 per cent in trade volume in the Republic, Nielsen figures for the six months to the end of last November, with growth of 7.9 per cent in the off trade and 1.4 per cent in stout plus lager in the on trade. Guinness volume share is now at 34.5 per cent in the on trade in the Republic which translates to over one in three pints sold in pubs.
While up North, Guinness grew by four points in the on trade and by 3.6 per cent in the off trade. Growth for the island of Ireland overall was driven by the continued growth of F15 innovations launched through the Brewers Project – Hop House 13 lager and West Indies Porter. Globally, Guinness net sales increased by nine per cent, O’Kelly adds.
Last year saw the launch of Guinness Zero in Indonesia.
Net sales in Nigeria grew by 28 per cent as it made gains from the distribution push last year to capture the growing off trade category. In Kenya, net sales increased by 11 per cent supported by the ‘Get Booked 2’ and ‘Made of Black’ marketing campaigns. O’Kelly says Guinness also gained share and increased net sales in Britain by four per cent.
O’Kelly says the Guinness Storehouse and the recently-launched Open Gate Brewery, above, which welcomes member of the public to taste new beers at St James’s Gate every Thursday and Friday, provide kudos as brand extensions. The Storehouse has become Ireland’s number one international visitor centre, with 1.5m visitors annually. Last year it was named Europe’s top tourist attraction, ahead of Buckingham Palace, The Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower.
The Storehouse’s managing director, Paul Carty, was presented with the president’s award at the recent Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) annual conference at a gala dinner in Killarney. The award marks the contribution Carty has made to Irish tourism. Previous winners include Martin Naughton, Dr Tom Cavanagh and former President of Ireland Mary McAleese.
Getting back to the old Guinness is Good for You line, research by the University of Wisconsin shows a pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as a low dose aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks. Diageo was told to stop using the slogan several decades ago and the company still makes no health claims for Guinness.
The Wisconsin team tested the health-giving properties of stout against lager by giving it to dogs who had narrowed arteries similar to those in heart disease. They found that those given the Guinness had reduced clotting activity in their blood, but not those given lager. Heart trigger clotting is of interest to people at risk of a heart attack due to hardened arteries.
