It must be the season for advertising real ale - first Fuller's roll out James May to plug London Pride in a TV and poster campaign, and now Greene King is having a crack with its £1m 'Man Deserves a Pint' campaign, which is running in newspapers and men's magazines. Both take very different approaches. It would be interesting to see who the respective brewers have identified as the target market for their respective beers. Any thoughts on which appeals more? And even if it doesn't appeal to you, do you think it will appeal to the demographic it is aimed at?
Here's a Fuller's TV ad:
And here are the new efforts from Greene King.
Personally - as someone who isn't really in the F&B industry, so hopefully I can comment quite neutrally for you - the first one gets it for me. I don't really get the Green King one.
Great to see some exposure for Real Ale. It's something I drink but amongst my lot it has an image of being stuffy, for old men and ironically not "real" ale and they'd rather plant a pint of Fosters in their right hand. *sigh*
Having said that, had a cracking night at Bolton Beer Festival recently. Almost as good as a certain other festival I visited in Munich in late September
LRainford:it has an image of being stuffy, for old men and ironically not "real" ale
I agree. It simply doesn't occur to me to drink ale.
But then, it never used to occur to me to drink cider but the incredibly successful ooh-look-it's-got-ice-in-it Magners campaign (cider sales went up 10% year on year, while beer sales fell 1% in the same period and the TV ads achieved a return on investment of £26 for every £1 spent in its more established markets) had me tempted. Well, almost - I still really don't like cider.
My point is, the retro stylings of the Greene King campaign don't smack of aspiration the way a good ad campaign should. Drinking golden jars of sparkly goodness in the sunshine with my good looking, happy friends? Yes please! Having a drink just because I scooped the poop? Er, no. Not me. And not many others either, I suspect.
Great. Now every time I look at a pint of IPA I am going to think 'dog terd in a bag'.
Ha! Not a very positive brand association, is it?
I don’t think the smoking ban is the worst law some restaurants and pubs are breaking to make a buck these days. – in my opinion a few cheeky smokes inside is fine. If they caught they get the penalty
Did you mean to post this in the SMOKING BAN: It's SNOW time to be breaking the law, is it? thread?