Delivering conspicuous brand consumption and elevated table theatre drive in-bar brand premiumisation in Africa; understandably, 8 in 10 drinkers responded that bottled beer doesn’t deliver a premium experience. Although 100% of consumers believe fresh beer on-tap elevates the experience, it requires kegs, beer lines and dedicated infrastructure which remains an operational challenge in Africa, and the pouring theatre happens away from the table.

Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a premium bottled stout with a rich, full-bodied taste that is best enjoyed chilled at 6 degrees with a slow, angled pour into the glass at the table; taste and visual quality can be adversely affected by inadequate refrigeration or rushed, straight pours that risk over-foam and gas loss from the liquid.

The opportunity for Guinness ProServe was to create a richly engaging, premiumised beer experience by designing a consumer-led journey with elevated brand visibility, table theatre and serve quality.

What if we re-imagined the beer keg? To create the smallest keg in the world, from a can! This combined with a beautifully designed and branded breakthrough technology platform to deliver the magic. A draught dispense system so wonderfully distilled to its essence that it allows everything needed to be effortlessly hand-delivered to a table of friends as just an ice-bucket of single-serve 'keg's, branded glassware and a lightweight, standalone draught dispense system... no traditional kegs or beer lines needed, just the perfect serve anytime, anywhere through a completely wireless platform that radically transforms an uneventful beer experience into an exciting, engaging and perfectly-paced sensory sensation experienced together with friends at your own social table. Gifting a group of friends the unforgettable shared experience and magical enjoyment of the newly introduced draught dispense of Guinness Foreign Extra stout, perfectly poured by their own hand.

Guinness ProServe for Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is a premium in-bar offering that heroes Guinness’ brand reputation for inimitable ‘Only Guinness Could Do’ innovation and marks Guinness as the clear leader for on-trade beer experience in Africa.

The disruptive qualities of this technology-enabled dispense solution are that it offers an excitingly transformative offering with:

- Ease of implementation (low deployment cost and only barrier to entry being a fridge, appeals to a range of hospitality settings);

- Low manufacturing impact (same liquid and canning packaging)

- Scalability (device manufacture is independent from beer production; liquid delivery channels are standard Aluminimum can distribution).

The combinatory tech, visual and taste proposition attracts significant user-generated-content and influencer postings. The innovation offers a regionally-aligned consumer journey and unrivalled conspicuous beer brand consumption that drives brand value and thrusts the Guinness experiential offering far above other beer brands into competition with the appeal of leading premium spirits.

The Guinness ProServe experience is a concept born in Africa with an engaging in-bar consumer journey as its core. African regional commercial representatives fuelled the creative ideation and evaluations of promising concepts from October 2022 to April 2023, leading to the concept of an at-table wireless draught dispense system featuring the smallest keg in the world! The concept was consumer-tested at an exclusive Guinness ‘MatchDay’ experience in Kenya in October 2023, where excitement for the experiential breakthrough reached fever pitch. Following rapid and intense development of a first-ever pulsed ultrasonic technology for carbonated beer, Guinness ProServe launched to outstanding acclaim in Kenya in February 2024 and in Nigeria in April 2024, with fervent influencer and social coverage. The proposition is now undergoing a phased African markets rollout and scaling.

Truly disruptive, the precision pulsed ultrasonics technology unlocks a smooth, tight and creamy draught domed head on Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.

Guinness ProServe combines disruptive dispense technology with a fully immersive consumer-led Guinness experience to create opportunities for premium beer experiences across all bars in Africa regardless of existing infrastructure.

The new, enriched offering brings a smoother and creamier Guinness Foreign Extra Stout with tighter, more generous beer head that domes proudly above the top of the glass; 86% described the new taste as “delicious”.

Guinness ProServe clearly delivers upon its ambition to elevate and premiumise the consumers’ beer experience with 95% finding positive appeal and almost 60% saying they felt it made them look “stylish”, engendering beer as a realistic choice for those who seek out conspicuous brand consumption; 3 in 4 would pay more for the offering.

The proposition also appeals to the bar owner, as over 90% of consumers would be more likely to use the bar if they knew it offered Guinness ProServe.