To promote non-alcoholic Guinness 0, the Diageo owned stout brand leveraged the start of the new NFL season through a campaign featuring two quarterbacks – San Franciso 49ers legend and brand ambassador Joe Montana and current Cincinnati Bengals star Joe Burrow – competing over who gets to wear the shirts number ‘0’ for the first time.
This creative evolved from the fact that, for the first time ever, this season NFL players can wear the number zero on their jerseys.
Guinness debuted the non-alcoholic alternative stout campaign on 21 August, prior to kick-off of the 2023/23 NFL season, through an initiative that also sought to raise awareness of the Joe Burrow Foundation (a non-profit focused on food insecurity).
The campaign was spearheaded by a 15-second video called ‘Guinness 0: Unsung Zeros’ which ran across Guinness’ US social channels.
The spot starts with Pro Bowl quarterback Burrow wearing a Guinness jersey with the number zero on it and then sees Montana walk into a locker room and state that he may start to wear the number himself. A comment that begins a terse but playful, back-and-forth between the two QBs.
A list-building strand of the campaign offers those who follow Guinness on social media a chance to win a signed jersey.
Plus, to support the video through a CSR strand, replicas of the jersey worn by Burrow in the video are available for purchase through the brand’s online store and all proceeds from sales will benefit the athlete’s namesake foundation as part of the umbrella ‘Guinness Gives Back’ initiative.
The spot and shirt spearhead the launch phase of what the brand states will be a season-long marketing push.
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This kick-off campaign sees Guinness lean into a cross-generational appeal by teaming up current young Bengals star Burrow with NFL Hall of Famer Montana.
As well as an apparent fondness for Guinness 0, both quarterbacks are known by the nickname ‘Joe Cool’ for their measured on-field play.
While the focus on social content sees Diageo marketers promote their products around the start of the pro football season despite rival Anheuser-Busch having an official and exclusive beer category tie-up with NFL. Indeed, the Guinness campaign launched the same week as official partner Bud Light’s ‘Easy To Sunday’ NFL marketing activation.
The strategy – also employed through its rugby ‘Guinness Clear’ sponsorship work – also sees Guinness join a growing number of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beverage brands promoting their products in the sports space to emphasize health and fitness.
For example, Heineken has long leveraged its 0.0 brand through its Formula 1 partnership through campaigns such as 2023’s ‘Best Driver Ever’ and ‘Player 0.0’ gaming initiative, as well as 2022’s ‘The Night Is Full Of Great Drivers’ and other responsible drinking initiatives like ‘3 More Reasons To Cheer’, ‘Stadium In A Box’, its ‘British Grand Prix Drive-In Screening’, the Rosberg ‘Father & Son’ campaign, plus 2018’s ‘Grid Waiters’ and 2016’s Jackie Stewart fronted ‘When You Drink, Never Drive’.
While a parallel trend linked to ‘0 / zero’, sees NFL partner PepsiCo appoint Pepsi Zero Sugar as the league’s official drink and activate its rights though a campaign featuring Philadelphia Eagles running back D’Andre Swift which gave away 100 #0 NFL team jerseys in #TeamZeroSugar.
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