AMV BBDO: Guinness on my mind

Even if you haven’t been anticipating a Guinness in the pub all year, you may do after watching Guinness’ Welcome Back spot by AMV BBDO. It’s full of the art of suggestion, and by that we mean that everything in the 40-second spot looks like a glass of Guinness – even a cat sitting on top of a compost bin, and the whole experience is underlined by the Willie Nelson classic, Always On My Mind.

It mimics what tends to happen when you’re longing for something and the commercial looks forward to the reopening of indoor pubs and bars in the UK on May 17.

The campaign, #LooksLikeGuinness, is running on national television in the UK, supported by online and video on demand, DOOH and print. In social media, the brand will support Guinness lovers to submit their own lookalike pints using the hashtag, #LooksLikeGuinness.

The pandemic was tough on Guinness. Before lockdowns, one in every ten pints served in London was a Guinness but the brand has not been inactive during the Covid year. Its £30M support pledge to UK pub & hospitality businesses through Guinness’ Raising the Bar programme has helped more than 25,000 pubs to date and delivered over 30,000 PPE kits across the UK. The brand also announced a £1 million pledge to support bartenders when the pandemic first hit and to help pubs and bars to reopen Guinness has offered the services of quality control experts to 50,000 venues across the country to clean more than 200,000 lines.

Credits:

Client: Diageo (Guinness)
Client Team: Ros Healy, Neil Shah, Linda Bradley & Beth Weston

Creative Agency: AMV BBDO
CCO: Alex Grieve
ECDs: Nadja Lossgott & Nicholas Hulley
Creative Directors: Nadja Lossgott & Nicholas Hulley
Creative Team: Jack Watts & James Cambridge
Planner: Lisa Stoney
Account Team: Michael Pring, Nick Andrew, Alexandra Sandford Smith & Ed Nash
Producers: Polly Lowles & Michelle Walton