The Brief
Get everyone who has a pulse to pay attention to Brewdog by taking a bold stance against hosting the World Cup in Qatar. And do it all in a little over 24 hours.
The Insight
Within three hours of receiving the client brief, I was in a room briefing creatives. Here’s what I wrote for them:
Everything about this World Cup is wrong.
It’s at the wrong time of year,
It’s in a place that’s too hot to play football,
It’s in a country with no interest in in football,
Or democracy.
And Scotland aren’t even in it (Brewdog is a Scottish brand).
This is not a real World Cup,
And we are not a real sponsor.
The Execution
I instructed the teams to lean into Brewdog’s punk DNA. Punk fulfils a clear role in society: it calls bullsh*t on the hypocrisy, pomposity, and corruption of the powers-that-be. It does so through razor sharp humour that packs a critical punch. It’s irreverent, it’s antagonistic but it’s likeable.
And that last bit is why humour is one of punk’s greatest weapons – irreverence and antagonism get you nowhere if all you do is annoy off the very people you’re trying to persuade. Straight hard-hitting facts alone would have come across as pearl clutching. Humour added a sardonic punk edge.
To strike the right balance, we offered a challenging punk POV that incorporated aspects of football banter and beer humour. We also got Brewdog to pledge to donate all profits from Lost Lager sold during the tournament to charities fighting human rights abuse.
Conceptual designers were briefed at the same time as creatives and they worked together from start to finish to deliver a suite of work where the creative concept is indivisible from the design concept.
The Results
The work won a D&AD Graphite Pencil.
At the time, it fiercely divided opinion in the marketing community with many taking to LinkedIn to dismiss it as a shameless PR stunt. It resonated well in the real world however with many people sharing its opposition to the World Cup being held in Qatar.
Our KPI was attention and the campaign delivered this in spades with 286 pieces of global coverage and 576 million earned impressions.
When all was said and done, Brewdog was one of only two brands globally to take a public stance on the issue and raised £111,153.00 to fight human rights abuse.
