An ad that encourages people to block ads? That’s exactly what US agency, Laundry Service, has created for Michelob Ultra Pure Gold. The idea, no doubt to attract millennials, celebrates Earth Day (April 22), winning fans by reminding them that they don’t have to see the average 5,000 ads a day.

Michelob’s ad blocker app replaces ads with “refreshing” nature images. The icing on this cake is that when US users click on that image, they are redirected to a site for a nearby park – an extra inducement to experience nature on Earth Day.

Deloitte research last year found that 31% of Americans use ad-blocking software on their computers led by 18- to 34-year-olds, who were more than 10 percentage points more likely block ads on PCs than people of all ages. In the same report, 20% of Americans said they use a mobile ad blocker.

The campaign supports the organic beer’s mission of helping people reconnect with nature. Michelob Pure Gold’s Super Bowl ad, starring Zoe Kravitz, was an ASMR experiment (also no doubt designed to appeal to millennials as ASMR was a fad at the time):

Its Michelob Pure Gold’s Oscars ad, inspired by the fitness fad called Animal Flow encouraged people to “return to nature”:

…and the brand created a partnership with mindfulness and meditation experts, The Big Quiet, to host a sunset meditation at SXSW this year.

Winning millennials is important to beer brands. When drinking alcohol, they chose beer just 49.7% of the time in 2017, down from 60.8% in the mid-’90s (WSJ), and 39% of the time in 2018. They chose spirits 41% of the time and wine 20%.

Note: IAB Australia research found that the ad blocker craze was waning slightly in June 2017. Awareness of ad blockers had increased from 59% to 63%, but usage had declined by two percentage points to 25% of online Australians since October 2016. In the UK in 2018, 22% were using an adblocker, compared with 28.7% in France and 32.0% in Germany (eMarketer).