Diageo has admitted a contemporary Guinness ad campaign, which saw it take over all three ad breaks during Saturday night’s (26 October) Jonathan Ross Show, did not live as much as the brand’s legacy of iconic marketing after it was criticised by viewers for being “painful” and “contrived”.
The media buy, a primary for the lager brand, used the #RoundUpYourMates hashtag to encourage fans to point out their support for spots on male bonding – a key pillar of the Guinness brand’s multimillion “Made of More” business plan. The hashtag was quickly hijacked by viewers, however, who used it to name out the logo for the campaign’s perceived loss of credibility.
Ed Pilkington, marketing and innovation director for Western Europe, told Marketing Week the campaign had not resonated with viewers within the way it had hoped, adding the logo had shot for a ten in relation to creative execution but “missed”. The thinking stems from Diageo’s “more magic, less logic” option to marketing, which inspires marketers to take creative risks and extra responsibilities.
Pilkington adds: “We realise the campaign hasn’t worked within the way that we would have liked it to and that’s something we’re addressing for the time being. It didn’t have the identical tone of voice within the way recent ‘Made of More’ campaigns just like the wheelchair ad was capable of resonate with people. We’ve only just started assessing why people reacted to it within the way that we did, but we’ll take those learnings on board with the exciting content-based work we’ve got arising for the logo.
“We encourage our marketing teams, creative partners and media agencies to be innovative and meaning shoot for 10. You can not always get that focus on but that shouldn’t prevent you from trying new things and pushing the bounds.”
Guinness is gearing up for further content-based activations inside the coming months as component of wider efforts to court younger drinkers and kickstart sales