Guinness: Pure Genius

The beer's so smart it's got its own head and its advertising is pure genius. As Belinda Archer probes the phenomenal success of Guinness campaigns down the years she finds a it's all been down to lists, rules and rubrics…

Within the confines of our humble little cottage industry, Guinness means oh-so-much more than just a pint of swirling dark stout with a creamy head, brewed somewhere over in Ireland. It also stands for, indeed is synonymous with, Great Advertising.

Which brand, when you think of it, has a finer heritage? Surfer, anyone? Swim Black? Noitulove, and Tipping Point? It's almost embarrassing that one single product should spawn so many classic pieces of landmark, jaw-dropping creativity.

So what is its secret? Is it the Liffey water, drawn from the famous Dublin river that is supposedly used in its brewing? Or its precious Irish heritage, its dark moistness and smooth head -- or the fact that it takes so bloody long to pour? Well yes and no. For it is the product itself, of course, but it is also a special, magical communications alchemy that propels it into our Premier League of advertising success stories.

Paul Cornell, the 35-year-old marketing manager for Guinness at Diageo GB [Guinness' holding company], has been in charge of the brand for the past three and a half years. He points to a fundamental truth. "Any great advertising has to have a fantastically distinct product at its core," he says. "That way you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining the product. You can focus on other things."

Other things indeed. Like Velasquez-inspired giant white chargers riding a spectacular wave, or cutting-edge special effects that transport three blokes in a pub back through evolution to swamp creatures.

But these 'other things' are not just lofty, lawless creative ideas for creativity's sake; they are born of a clearly defined, almost forensically proven, collection of rules - a sort of rubric - that Guinness has been applying to its advertising for years. "We have a clear formula, a checklist that prompts great work," says Cornell. "Firstly, the product has to be integral to the advertising. Guinness is in a league of its own, it is viscerally engaging and an interesting product, and that needs to be at the core. Second, the work has to be emotionally engaging. It's got to take people on a journey, and they have got to care about the protagonists. Thirdly, there has to be scale: Guinness is a premium brand, so we have to create a bit of a wow in its advertising, maybe through special effects or the location [of a commercial] or the quality of the cinematography. And lastly, there has to be engagement - there has to be a feelgood factor. We want the consumer to be uplifted or to have a wry smile."

These four rules are ruthlessly applied to any new campaign idea that comes through: if it fails on any count, the idea stops there. And, judging by the brand's advertising performance to date, it appears to be an almost fail-safe formula.

The agency recently empowered to apply all these exacting communications criteria is AMV BBDO. It has been working with Guinness for the past 11 years since Swim Black (its first film for the brand), following O&M before it, which similarly had a long tenure of around eight years and which oversaw the Pure Genius episode in the brand's history that began with Rutger Hauer. This longevity, in fact, is another key to unlocking Guinness' advertising success.

"Eleven years is one of the longest relationships we've got within Diageo and it has lasted because of three factors," says Cornell, who clearly has a liking for lists. "The standard of the creative work, which has always surprised us. AMV always come back with a great script or some stunning print work. Also, the account management skills - we have a great relationship with the team and they are genuine business partners. Also, their passion for the product. Everyone who works on the account, from traffic up to the chairman, loves the product and the brand, and that enthusiasm is almost infectious. That brand passion is critical to us."

Not surprisingly, however, this tight relationship does not put off other agencies from approaching Diageo. Cornell laughs when he recalls the number of cold calls he gets from hungry shops trying to prise the account out of AMV's grasp. And he says that the agency understands this.

"From an above-the-line point of view, Diageo wants to have long-standing relationships with its agencies. Look at how long JWT has worked with Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff, for example. We pride ourselves in working with agencies and creating business partnerships that last a number of years, but yes, of course, we have looked over our shoulders. We've got a really high bar, but AMV always seem to perceive this before we do. Good account management senses it." Indeed, it would seem that AMV is almost constantly on its toes.

Paul Brazier, executive creative director of AMV, who has worked on specific Guinness ads as well as overseeing the agency's output on the brand for five years, adds: "My attitude is that we should never be complacent. We should never take our partnerships for granted and assume that they will be so long lasting. That attitude, in fact, seems to build long-standing relationships."

Cornell says that over the 11 years, the agency has struck the right balance between continuity and new inspiration. Brazier, for instance, has worked on the business for six years; AMV's chairman, Cilla Snowball, has worked on it for nine years, and the vice chairman, Mark Petersen, has also been on it for six years, but notably the grass-roots creative input has been kept purposefully fresh and changing throughout.

"There has been good continuity but that can be a bad thing sometimes, and they have brought in new creatives all the time. In fact we've never had the same creative team," says Cornell. "Braze [Paul Brazier] puts the brief out to all the different teams."

It's quite an extraordinary statistic, that of the six TV ads and 20 print campaigns that Cornell has overseen, he has only worked with the same creative pairing twice. "The size of the AMV team is a great benefit," he agrees. "We get the opportunity to see lots of different people's ideas."

But what, beyond the rather prescriptive rubric of Guinness' own advertising formula, is the secret to the brand's communications success? What makes it capable of inspiring such creative highs as Surfer and Noitulove? It is, let's not forget, just a beer, after all. "Four things come to mind," says Brazier, echoing Cornell's methodical mind. "A great product, a great brand, a great consumer base, and a great client. Let's start with the product. Guinness is a unique drink. It's distinctive in its visual appearance, its taste and how it's poured. It's also fantastic and challenging to work on such a famous brand. Most people recognise the brand of Guinness. It's one of the most loved brands in the world, but the challenge comes in refreshing a 250-year-old brand and keeping it relevant. As for the consumers, Guinness drinkers are sophisticated and advertising savvy. They expect intelligent and well-produced advertising to do justice to this extraordinary drink. And last but not least, is the client, who recognises the power of great advertising."

He adds that AMV and Guinness "push each other hard". "What is important for me is that the client knows that we will come through for them. This relationship has produced landmark advertising that has won numerous awards over the years," he says.

Cornell gives the client view to the same question. "Our category dynamics and premium brand require us to do good work," he says simply. "It's a category where there is a lot of emotional rather than functional benefit. We have to get people's imaginations by appealing to their emotions. Guinness has a seven per cent share of the long alcoholic drinks sector, and we are competing against lager which has a 70 per cent share, so we have got to shout louder than our size and spend can dictate."

Consumers also pay a price premium of around 10 per cent for Guinness, so the advertiser has to maintain sufficient demand in the right way and keep the message right to justify that premium pricing.

Not everything has always been impeccably judged, however: both Moth and Mustang, the Anthony Minghella-directed film, led to Guinness losing crucial market share. Each was deemed "too big a departure" - the executions were not really relevant to the target consumer, the films had scale and emotional engagement, but crucially, according to Guinness' fail-safe code, they did not link back to the product enough. The code had not been applied sufficiently stringently.
Interestingly, Cornell reveals that advertising is more important to Guinness than any other Diageo brand, and this is possibly another factor that means its communications have to be, and luckily are, market leading. "Advertising has a bigger impact on Guinness' sales than any other of Diageo's brands. Its advertising is the number one driver of Guinness' business, because it is a product that is available in every pub so we can't grow distribution, and because there are one million pints being sold in the UK alone per day, so we have to do things on a scale. Also, the majority of our business is done in pubs, so we can't really do price promotions. So it is the big, idea-led advertising that is the thing that really makes the difference to our business."

And make a difference it does. Both the advertising prizes and the market data bear out the fact that the AMV/Guinness combo is a winning one. Together they have won D&AD black pencils and the top prize at Cannes (for Noitulove), with Guinness Surfer being voted the greatest ad of all time in 2002 in a public poll by The Sunday Times and Channel 4. Tipping Point was also voted 3rd best campaign by all media in the world, according to The Big Won 2008, scoring 141 points and beating Cadbury's Gorilla on 117 points. Market share has increased too; in 2001 it was six per cent of the long alcoholic drinks sector, now it is eight per cent, according to AC Nielsen.
One final element in this tale of advertising happiness is the client and agency's joint ability to move things on, to shift the core campaign idea - even when things seem to be going swimmingly. Hence at the end of last year, the enviably successful 'Good things come to those who wait' tagline was boldly dropped in favour of the new 'Bring it to life'.

"Because it is a relationship, we write the briefs together," says Cornell. "We began to think that we were telling people the same thing all the time, and AMV came up with the idea of focusing on Guinness' unique energy rather than the settle time, as before. It was a really big thing to move on. We thought, is this marketing madness, moving away from that endline, but we had a good level of gut feeling and empirical data."

So yet another episode in Guinness' glorious advertising tradition dawns. And if the past means anything, this new focus looks set to notch up creative milestones, garner prizes and sell stout just as much as its predecessors. Anyone for a pint?