Guinness ad on a lot of social media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwndLOKQTDs
I’ve been sent this a lot over the last few days.
The reaction seems to be overwhelmingly positive, but I’m not so taken with it.
I like the twist; it’s clever, unexpected and feels like you ought to have seen it somewhere before.
But I don’t like the seriousness, the portentous music, the wanky VO or the attempt to make this gag into an ad for beer.
What it’s got to do with Guinness (other than the fact that friends drink Guinness together, as they do virtually every other beer on earth)?
So it felt pretentious and up its own arse – not great attributes in a beer ad.
UPDATE: here’s an ice cream ad from 2011 (thanks, S&C):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHIngSfm_ck
Which just proves the point about it having nowt to do with Guinness.
Or ice cream.
Or anything, really.
UPDATE 2: and the music is from this other, equally up-its-own-arse ad (thanks, A):
I love it when beer brands tell me how i should live my life as they shamelessly manipulate me using images of the less-abled.
That too.
The client loves it, I’m sure.
It’s early in the day. But I just threw up. Do you think the Guinness ‘healed’ them? Other than the chap who drank ‘off-message’?
Reminds me every so slightly of, you know, this year’s Cannes Grand Prix for film .
I quite liked the twist. But it was more sentimental than inspiring.
It’s okay, I guess. And by the current standards, above average.
Still, another brand of what once was.
Can’t believe they just ditch their wheelchairs in the middle of the court. Could have at least put them away for the next person to use.
i think it would be better if there was some canned laughter at the end.
I think the problem is the music and the VO (you don’t need it the visual is powerful enough) but mainly the music – it’s sentimental, tries to make things heroic, and grandiose. Like in a Roland Emmerich film… blah…
Slow motion too. It will be more powerful if they use only the real sound from the game. But mainly I think somebody really likes this Nike ad 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obdd31Q9PqA
Oh look what I just found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHIngSfm_ck
Hurr durr. Can we get Trott to write a blog post about this?
@Adam: I think there’s some connection between the iron in Guinness and the iron in a wheelchair. And maybe this lot are just a bunch of ‘irons’ (as they say in the East End (in a somewhat pejorative manner)).
Oh dear. I read a comment (on here I think) about beer brands endlessly swinging from product ‘insight’ to audience ‘insight’. Guinness have done the 120″ to pour thing for years – and made some pretty good ads along the way – but I imagine a researcher said no-one really cared. Shame. It’s a much better brief than ‘interesting groups of friends love to get together to drink our beer’. The Carling ads from about 5 years ago are the only versions of that particular truth I’ve ever liked, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AM49svaGQ
I am sick and tired (geddit) of these faux serious manifesto VO’s.
“We are made to share” (Mobile phone).
“At so and so’s we believe…insert boring crap here (any brand).
“Exploring is in our nature”(any travel brand).
These portentous VO’s just serve to underwhelm when they try to align the human condition with a crappy little car or a holiday or bog cleaner. It’s just a product not a life enhancing answer to our existential angst.
Stop fucking telling me that I am things I’m not. I’ll tell you what you are. You’re an armshitting fuckface.
The YOU here is brands not you Benjamin or any of your readers. Unless you’ve written one of these so called ads.
@13 Welcome to the discussion about that recent Nike ad with Bradley Cooper’s voice from two weeks ago.
I’m tired of these as well.
Same/similar twist, better ad– silver lion winner from 2001
http://youtu.be/rqjl2mnzKaU
That is better, and more appropriate to the product.
And less wanky.
Oh my dear god. What have they done to you, Chivas? I can’t recognise you anymore. You were so different…so charming…so true:
http://tetley-jones.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chivas-Regal-11.jpg
That’s really nice of them to humour that poor wheelchair man like that. They even bought him a pint afterwards.
Bless.
It’s the planners. All these ads are rubbish because of the planners.
I’d love creatives just to walk. Let the planers make their own fuckin’ ads.
*spot the deliberate mistake. I didn’t mean Nigel’s family, obv.
It is a tad patronising. This Guinness ad, not the other ones that are similar.
I am a bit of a twat, but I don’t expect my mates to be the same. Other than you Ben. I totally expect it from you.
Is it impossible to be original now?
Comments #13 and #19 – spot on.
rubbish.
Is it impossible to be original now? No. It simply requires complete dedication to being unaware of what anyone else thinks.
You can’t be mass-original. Ads will never be original. Which is why they should stop fucking about and get on with selling shit.