How Guinness used humour to encourage rugby fans to drink responsibly during the Six Nations

Guinness, the beer brand, successfully turned the important topic of responsible drinking into a source of laughter and banter as well as information with its witty “Guinness Clear” campaign. 

Background

• Sports fans often drink up to 50% more during sporting events and tend to underestimate the amount of alcohol they have consumed. 
• Responsible drinking campaigns frequently portray soft drinks as a pause in the fun, but don’t achieve genuine consumer breakthrough and engagement. 
• Guinness aimed to inject some levity into its messaging around responsible drinking and give consumers an alternative to drinking alcohol.

Strategy

• Guinness called on its trademark humour and wit to rebrand plain tap water as “Guinness Clear”.
• The beer brand treated Guinness Clear as if it were launching an entirely new product and parodied classic beer marketing clichés.
• Guinness launched Guinness Clear in the UK and Ireland during the Six Nations Rugby Championship, an event fans often enjoyed while drinking a few beers. 

Results

• Guinness Clear delivered the brand’s highest ever return on investment – a notable achievement considering the campaign objective wasn’t even to sell Guinness.
• The campaign encouraged people in the UK and Ireland to reduce their alcohol intake by 80% and 82% respectively.
• Moreover, 56% of Irish rugby fans and 82% of British rugby fans agreed the campaign made it more acceptable to drink water in a pub.
• The work won Gold in the 2021 APG Creative Strategy Awards.