Ads Review - A St. Patrick’s Day Message From Guinness 2020
In March of 2020, people in the United States began to hear a lot more about something called COVID-19. Pretty soon after that, we all started taking it a bit more seriously. On March 11, 2020, the NBA suspended its season. On March 15th, the city of Los Angeles shut down all restaurants and bars.
In the middle of that, on March 13, 2020, Guinness published an ad, just before St. Patrick’s Day. I’m still amazed the at speed with which they created and published this ad, just before St. Patrick’s Day (the only day of the year people actually drink Guinness). Check out the ad, then I’ll break down why this works, how it was so timely and what we can learn from it.
They Used Found Footage
The only way they were able to pull off this ad was by using found footage. It probably wasn’t too difficult, reusing and licensing St. Patrick’s Day footage, and clips from their other ads. While there’s no real storyline to the visuals of this ad, they come together nicely to support a voice-over. And most importantly, with found footage, they were able to put this ad together quickly, in a time when our leaders were making announcements and changing their minds by the hour, and everyone was in a state of panic.
They Had a Great Voice-Over
You can’t have a Guinness ad without an Irish accent, so the voice over they recorded was perfect. It was a light Irish accent that was easy for Americans to understand, while still getting the cultural feel across. And the script? Wonderful. It acknowledged the state of the world the time, and encouraged people to stay safe, and avoid crowds. But it didn’t do so with a smug, uppity tone. There is brief moment of sadness when the narrator says, “A Big Parade? Don’t worry. We’ll march again.” At a time when everyone was pushing agendas and timelines with a surgical sense of urgency, I remember getting emotional at this little bit of empathy from Guinness.
They Spoke First
Customers were feeling a whirlwind of emotions, as were restaurants, bars, brands, and all businesses. No one knew what was coming next, and everyone was so busy putting their own affairs in order, and hunkering down, that no one had time to say a word. Except Guinness. With a very different kind of St. Patrick’s day looming, they knew they had to say something. This was the first COVID-related ad that I saw, and thank goodness it was so positive and uplifting.
Closing
Guinness had one shot to make this ad, and once they published it, there was no going back. I can imagine there may have been a fair amount of pushback internally. It probably seemed like a really big risk to make an ad referencing COVID-19 in a time when everything was in a state of flux. All I can say is great job to the team who made this, and thank you for having the guts to publish this when you did. Ads can have such a positive effect on our culture, and I’ll ad this one to the list of memorable pieces.
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