The microbrewery world has a big problem: Puns. Yeah. Puns. Comic and innocuous plays on words printed on beer labels detract from the craftmanship of the product. In Quebec, the problem is way worse since French gives an infinite number of options to play with. And at Ras L’Bock, a microbrewery in Quebec, Canada, they know it better than anyone – their name is also a pun. It means “we’ve had it up to here.” Instead of being part of the problem, Ras L’Bock became the solution. 

They bought more than 250 beer puns so other microbreweries would have to find something a bit more original when trying to name a new beer. And, they launched the whole thing on social media.

Then the beer community started to share some puns of their own, and Ras L’Bock bought them instantly. Even when the most popular radio shows in the province talked about it on the air (for more than 10 minutes straight), Ras L’Bock listened and bought their suggestions as well, turning more than 250 bad beer puns into unavailable names.

We decided to go after a play on words because it seems like every new craft beer name was a pun. It was out of control! Someone had to do something. And, who better than the ones with a shitty pun in their name?

We bought more than 250 unique URLs with unique descriptions. Then we launched the whole thing on social media where the beer community took over and suggested hundreds of puns of their own. We knew that would happen, and we were ready to buy all of them, instantly turning their suggestions into unavailable names. We did the same thing when the most popular radio shows talked about the campaign on air. Every suggestion they made was bought right on the spot.

The response to the campaign was immediate. The beer geeks loved it and it caught the attention of local media with more than 11 minutes of airtime on prime-time radio shows browsing all the websites to discover the names that we bought.

There were over three million impressions (and there’s only eight million people in Quebec). Engagement went up by 357% on social media. But, most importantly, there were 42 new points of sale in the first month, with sales increasing by 37% and 250 beer puns off the market.

All that for a measly $2,000 on Go Daddy.