Brand: Guinness Draught
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here - It is the second spot entitled “Brilliant Smell”
Target: Football fans and Guinness Lovers
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
Two mustached, beaverskin coat-wearing, beer-drinking black and white cutouts bobble through a scene with a football staduium in the background. They talk about football and tailgate parties and note that local fans (presumably in Green Bay) wear cheese on their heads. One of the guys pulls out two big hunks of limburger which quickly empty the parking lot. “I’m not so sure we’re fitting in,” one man comments. “I smell feet,” the other says. The Guiness logo and a brief voiceover urging viewers to drink responsibly ends the spot.

What Works:
The visual style of these spots (which have also included a beach spot featuring the Guinness boys in black and white striped one-piece bathing suits) is unique and memorable. The period details of the Guinness brothers’ outfits, their unfamiliarity with the modern world and their style of speech lend authenticity to the brand. This spot is genuinely funny and might generate conversation. It is unique and would not work for competitive brands.

What Doesn’t:
To summarize this and most other ads in this category we turn to Shakespeare - “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Not that the tellers are idiots, but happened to brand positioning in this category? When advertising blogs are reduced to comparing the pointless humor of one ad to the mindless skin of another, where is the consumer left? Do any of these companies really think that their consumers are motivated by this advertising when they go to the corner market to buy beer? Most advertising in this industry does not meet the simplest recall test - can you remember which beer brand that commercial was pitching?

This spot at least makes Guinness seem distinctive. But it fails to reinforce what is better about that difference. If draught beer drinkers are so distinctive and loyal that they do not need to be reminded of the product benefits, then why advertise to them at all? Wouldn’t the biggest job for Guinness marketers be to ensure that consumers could easily find the beer on shelf?

Guinness has a worldview, but this spot only hints at what it might be. It is sad that the authentic positioning in this category can be captured by a less distinctive product like Coors when some very unique brands exist as well.

Branding Bottom Line:
A funny but pointless ad for Guinness sums up the state of Beer advertising.