An Epic Waste Of Money?

Guinness is about to launch its new marketing campaign, heralding the change of strap line from ‘Good things come to those who wait’ to ‘Bring it to life’ with an epic advert involving the land, sea and sky being manually altered by an army of bristley chined men in order to ‘bring it to life’ (no women – maybe they were back at home dealing with the domestic ramifications of a dramatic change in the landscape and climate such as your garden suddenly disappearing down the big chasm in the earth that’s just been created?).

It is without a doubt an amazing piece of visual art – involving locations from around the world, three months of preparation, and army assistance. Its aim was, Paul Cornell, marketing manager for Guinness describes, “to create a truly amazing campaign which will graphically illustrate the life, energy and passion of the brand.” But is it necessary, and is it an appropriate use of spondoodles worth of money (FYI: spondoodles is a technical term reserved for the high-end of the ad industry where traditional concepts of value=worth=money break down due to the massive gravitational pull of cash-cow brands, a bit like like how the laws of physics breakdown inside a black hole).

I’m not being completely naive and misguided here – those spoondoodles did pay for the time of hundreds of creatives, crew and extras which in turn put food in the mouths of their family (which least we forget is the reason why we’re all here) and has brought the brand to people’s attention. I’m writing about it now so the latter is self-evident whatever your opinion of the ad.

However, couldn’t they have spent that money on something that offered a bigger benefit to consumers than 1min 30 secs worth of ‘oooh’ before they go back to the Champions League and shouting at Rafael Benitez as if they know more about coaching a team than him? Something that involved consumers a bit more and created more value in their lives? Then not only would everybody get paid (including that slice of spondoodles that ensures creatives like us have innocent smoothies to put in the mouths of our immaculately dressed precocious children) but we’d have created something that was useful AND made sure consumers were thinking about and buying more of Guinness than previously!

And I’m sorry but a Google Earth app doesn’t cut it.