Escaping Lager’s ‘Unfortunate Cultural Baggage’ with BrewDog
Imagine a lager commercial. How does it make you feel? I’d wager not like this campaign for BrewDog’s Lost Lager does. Because this campaign, the first for the brewery by Media.Monks, rails against all the cliches and false promises that beer advertising too often relies on.
‘Real Lager’ is something of a manifesto, instilled with meaning and passion through copy that some might feel is too high brow for a beer ad, but also with an irreverence that we’ve come to expect from BrewDog. The film, directed by Taz Tron Delix, shows a passionate plea against apathy and for authenticity. It celebrates BrewDog’s rebellious nature.
LBB’s Alex Reeves caught up with Jimmy Blom, executive creative director at Media.Monks, to hear about the decisions behind the work.
LBB> This is Media.Monks' first work for BrewDog. Where did the idea start out?
Jimmy> The reason Brewdog created Lost Lager to begin with was as a response to the lager industry losing its way, compromising on quality for the sake of mass consumption and price. This, alongside lager’s unfortunate cultural baggage, loaded with irrelevant, outdated and artificial lifestyle ideals, gave us the perfect opportunity to call out the competition, and what the lager industry thinks we aspire to.
LBB> It obviously references a lot of the worst clichés of beer advertising. That seems like a fun process for advertising creatives. How did you end up identifying the kind of thing you wanted to set Lost Lager in contrast to?
Jimmy> To be honest, the clichés are everywhere we look, whether its promises of a better, more beautiful, more socially successful, or richer life. We picked the ones that stood most obviously in contrast to reality.
LBB> The copy style is quite wordy. It certainly doesn't patronise audiences! What was behind that decision and how did the copy change as it developed?
Jimmy> We have, as a society, never been more literate. We’re ranting, reading and writing like never before. We wanted to lean into a bit of passion to get our point across, and there certainly wasn’t any need to patronise our audience with over simplification or dumbing down.
LBB> How did the film script come into being? The copy is quite directly backed up by the visuals, but it's fairly abstract.
Jimmy> We wanted to deliver our message as raw as we could, stripped of as many conventions as possible. We also wanted to, as viscerally as we could, depict the state of mind of our protagonist swinging and switching between frustration, strength, sarcasm and despair, enhancing it using subtly unnerving analogue film techniques and binaural soundscapes that amplifies the emotions and immerses us into the rant.
LBB> What was it like working with Taz too? He's had a phenomenal career so far and feels like a good cultural fit for the brand.
Jimmy> Taz is a brilliant director, with an extraordinary passion for craft. Not only was he the perfect cultural fit, coming from an amazing career of music video and performance directing, but his eye for detail, and stubborn dedication to 35mm film and cinematic techniques, made for a stunningly crafted piece of film.
LBB> It's an integrated campaign too. Can you tell us about some of the components beyond the film?
Jimmy> We launched across almost every format from TV to social, with a massive OOH and DOOH presence, but the vast majority of executions were tailored for social media with specific calls to action. What was fantastic was producing all the social elements with the same care as the hero AV. Not many six second socials are shot on 35mm.
LBB> Anything else you'd like to add about the campaign?
Jimmy> Working with the incredibly ambitious BrewDog team gave us more than mere licence to produce something that would genuinely stand out. It’s a very exciting first step on our journey together.
