Guinness' sales had slowed and to return to growth, it needed to shift its communication approach to penetrate new, younger, and more diverse audiences that it had alienated over time.

Women in particular felt disenfranchised from the brand as it was steeped in masculine connotations. The aura surrounding the Guinness serve was ostracising the younger audience we wanted to reach. We knew we needed a creative approach that acted as an open invitation to the brand.

Furthermore, we found that our target audience (25-34 year olds) were spending 170 minutes per day on vs 109 on TV. (Warc, 2023). According to IAB, the majority of this time was spent with user-generated and influencer content as opposed to branded content. So we had to adapt our communications strategy and move from detached, formal relationships to a social-first conversational style.

As of 2022, the Instagram account @ShitLondonGuinness had significantly more followers than the official Guinness GB account. This made us realise we needed to adopt a more authentic and relaxed style to resonate with our audiences.

We reimagined our Irish Charm for a new generation by becoming open, playful, and more accessible.

Social listening showed our community was less concerned with perfect pints, preferring to get creative with our product to demonstrate quality. This led us to our creative idea for earning attention where we reinvented rituals - showcasing, celebrating, and reimagining them in culturally relevant ways.

Finally, we accelerated to the speed of culture to give Guinness a human tone of voice in live cultural moments as they unfold throughout the year, driving record levels of earned reach.

Through social listening, we understood that Guinness was heavily associated with only a few key moments throughout the year - St Patrick’s Day, and the Rugby Six Nations. We saw an opportunity to use social media to stretch how we showed up across the year, becoming more relevant in more moments to more people.

In order to return the brand to growth, we shifted our target audience to focus on 18-34-year-olds, targeting more diverse and more female drinkers. We focused on a consistent drumbeat of content that told a new, dynamic Guinness story throughout the year. This comprised of earned-first formats, influencer partnerships and user-generated content working in unison to change perceptions about Guinness.

1/ FROM ORGANIC TO EARNED

We couldn’t just focus on existing drinkers, we had to tell our story to future audiences. We pivoted from an organic social strategy to an earned strategy, readjusting tactics and metrics accordingly. Our approach focused on telling our story to new audiences. We concentrated on driving user-generated content and formats with earned potential. A simple but powerful change that helped shift our communications from being focused on loyalty to penetration.

2/ FROM INFLUENCERS TO GUINN-FLUENCERS

For the first time ever, Guinness trusted social creators to launch a critical product innovation in Nitrosurge. From May to October, we worked with a selection of creators to bring the at-home Guinness experience to life on Instagram.

3/ FROM SCHEDULED TO SPONTANEOUS

We built a flexible communications approach, enabling our real-time newsroom to meet the community where they are, embedding Guinness in the cultural conversation.

See confidential below.