Independence Day. America’s birthday. A day when Americans celebrate their nation’s birth with a cold beer. Every year, American beer companies cover their cans with stars and stripes and exploit the outcome of a 200-year-old war to sell more beer.

Well, Newcastle Brown Ale thinks that’s bollocks. Mostly because British imports like ours don’t have our own holiday to exploit. So we made one up: Independence Eve, a holiday celebrating the last day of British rule over America, while shamelessly selling tons of British beer. To get Americans excited for their new British holiday, we introduced “If We Won”, a campaign celebrating how great America could’ve been if Britain won the Revolutionary War and still ran this country. We kicked things off with a plea to America from British comedian Stephen Merchant, and followed with films featuring sophisticated Brit Elizabeth Hurley and American actor Zachary Quinto, as a wannabe British thespian. We also created a simple app that showed folks what their city would be named if Brits ran America, and released a series of alternate history films imagining a better, British-er America. When our campaign ruffled a few patriots’ feathers, we were ready, with a pre-taped apology from Elizabeth Hurley that was more of a non-apology.

“If We Won” racked up 534 million PR impressions, 241 news articles and 5.5 million views across 16 content pieces, for a total 763.5 million impressions. But most importantly, scores of Americans turned their backs on their motherland and to celebrate Independence Eve.

As proud Brits, we don’t have holidays to exploit like the rest of the American beer brands do. Instead we made one up: Independence Eve, a holiday celebrating the last day of British rule over America, while selling tons of British beer.

We introduced “If We Won,” a campaign celebrating how great America could’ve been if Britain won the Revolutionary War and still ran this country. We began with a plea to America from British comedian Stephen Merchant and films featuring sophisticated Brit Elizabeth Hurley and American actor Zachary Quinto as a wannabe British thespian. We created a simple app showing folks their city’s name if Brits ran America, and released a series of “alternate history” films imagining a better, British-er America. When our campaign ruffled a few patriots’ feathers, we responded with a pre-taped apology from Ms. Hurley that was actually more of a non-apology apology.

Newcastle set out to hijack the brand conversation for the second straight year, and that's exactly what we did. Collectively the campaign pieces amassed 34 million views across 6 pieces of content, with 430 unique earned media pickups, all of which amount to more than 2.3 billion impressions.

Dollar for dollar, Newcastle saw a lift in brand conversation that outperformed the Big Game’s “official” beer brand sponsor brand by a factor of 500. Talk about fiscal responsibility.