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A chilly welcome

Posted in Advertising, Creative December 11th, 2006 by Oliver Milman

Guinness adverts have always had an element of surrealism about them (horses leaping through waves with surfers anyone?), but the drink brand’s latest spot manages to out-odd all previous efforts.

Imagine, if you can, the scene at the creative meeting at Abbott Mead Vickers.BDDO, the agency that has created the new advert.

“Guinness served in a can – what exactly does that mean?” agonises the account manager, steepling his fingers. 

“Well, it’s like a pint of Guinness, but in a can,” offers a fellow creative, helpfully. The others frown.

“Style, sophistication - despite it being in a tin - and a new, home-focussed drinking demographic. A bit like having a pub in your house. And, erm, Dublin,” a second colleague enthuastically babbles.

“Right. So how do we demonstrate all of these things?” demands the account manager.

Cue a nervous shuffling of Converse trainers and Emma Hope shoes. The creatives gaze vacantly at the Yukka plant in the corner of the office through their NHS spectacles. Despite the inspirational urgings of the “Put your ID in an IDEA” wall-hanging, silence reigns.

“Oh, sod it,” grumbles the account manager. “We might as well just have a bloody midget stuck inside a fridge pouring a pint of the damn stuff.”

And so, to sycophantic nods, the creative meeting ends. And we, the casual observers, have yet another bizarre Guinness advert plastered across our TV screens.

The spot shows a chilly-looking midget struggling to pour an oversized pint of Guinness in what looks to be a minimalist white bar.

In a nod to another previous, and bonkers, Guinness advert, a fish is mounted on the wall behind him. The bicycle must be chained up outside.

As soon as the man finishes pouring the pint, a giant door opens and you realise he’s been inside a fridge for all of this time. A giant God-like hand descends to pluck the Guinness from the fridge.

The fridge door is slammed, seemingly leaving the small man in some sort of freezing oblivion as the pint magically turns into a can – the message obviously being that supping from a can while at home watching X Factor by yourself is somehow comparable to being in a pub with your mates.

The familiar tagline “Good things come to those who…” appears, with the word “wait” substituted by the spookily disembodied hand, which plonks the can at the end of the sentence. The advert ends.

The advert is a good stab at quirkiness by AMV BDDO, but lacks both the style (the surfer ad) or the homely chumminess (almost all other Guinness ads) of its predecessors. Compared to the most recent evolution (”Noitulove”) adverts, it pales into comparison. Maybe time to put the surrealism concept back into deep freeze for a while.

Six out of ten.