Guiness Video Commercials: Setting The Tone

This being Arthur’s Day and all, we thought we might take a look at the famed drinks manufacture and examine how they have used their unique commercials to push their brand image. Over the 250+ years that Guinness have been pumping out their stout, they have always seemed to be on the cutting edge of marketing. Whether it was from creating the famous posters to having a full tour of their brew house, Guinness have known from the beginning that one of the most important ways to stay in the game is to always have fresh ideas. These days, Guinness have been using video marketing as a major method of attracting attention to their product. But the video ads themselves don’t exactly concentrate on people simple sipping on stout in the sun, or presenting a fantastic night out on the black stuff. No, Guinness have always had a different approach. Their commercials have always been about setting a specific and consistent tone. This tone is one of dark beauty, immense pride and respect. We thought we might just review a couple of recent Guinness commercial in this blog, just to show what we mean about the tone that they attempt to capture.

Guinness Basketball Commercial

Take this commercial for example. A group of young men get together to play basketball. All the men are in Wheel chairs. Except it is then revealed that only one of them actually is wheelchair bound. The rest are playing out of respect and pride. It is only in the last 10 seconds of the commercial, do we even see a pint being poured. For this video, it is more about nailing the tone and idea first, then advertising second.

Guinness Clocks

With this next commercial, we see that they are taking a more cinematic approach. It has the feel of French cinema mixed with some German Expressionism (That’s right, I went to Film School!). But this time, they only show you the actual product in the last two seconds of the commercial. The rest is about creating a sense of excitement and wonder. It also has a uniquely black and white colour palette. This keeps it in tone with the product they are selling.

Guinness Tom Crean Commercial

This next one continues with the black and white style. And again, the tone and idea of pride & respect lead the way. For a two minute commercial, we only see the pint half way through at the one minute mark. And then that is only for about 20 seconds or so.

As you can see, Guinness have been striving hard for a couple of years to rebrand themselves through the use of video marketing. But instead of using tactics of competitors such as Budweiser and Coors (who usually lead with the humourous videos of men enjoying their beer), Guinness have instead went for a more timeless approach. By pushing ideas of respect and pride, their intention is that the audience will connect these thoughts to the product itself. An approach which as of this writing seems to have been working out for them so far!

Image by: <a href=”//www.shutterstock.com/gallery-166210p1.html?cr=00&pl=edit-00″>Brendan Howard</a> / <a href=”//www.shutterstock.com/?cr=00&pl=edit-00″>Shutterstock.com</a>