Guinness Arthurs Day

2009 marked the 250th Anniversary of the Guinness brand, it was also the year in which the Irish economy came crashing down. As a result, consumers started to curb their spending.  They didn’t go out as much and the beer market started to suffer.

Guinness had a loyal consumer base, there was the elusive 26-30 year old male that recognised Guinness as a popular drink, but they didn’t see themselves drinking it regularly. Recognising this insight and using the 250th year of celebration, Guinness created a buzz that the target audience could not miss, and as a result they would try the product and reappraise Guinness.

As part of the 2009 celebrations, Guinness chose 24 September as a special day that the entire country, and even the world were encouraged to celebrate and raise a glass to the brewer Arthur Guinness at 17.59 – the year he came up with the Guinness recipe. Arthur’s Day was to be the event of the year, like a national day of celebration.
Consumer insight was very much based around the fact that young men, who found themselves in the middle of a recession, were still optimistic and relatively positive. With Arthur’s Day, Guinness hoped to provide a point of optimism, and help people forget the  recession for a while and remind them all the good things about Ireland and re-create that sense of pride that had been slightly lost.

Guinness mobilised the nation by creating the idea that Arthur’s Day was a national day of celebration - an unofficial national holiday. Arthurs Day, an idea born in a marketing department was created on the streets of Ireland just by encouraging participation. All media communications were aimed at the primary target, men aged 26-30. Media selection was heavily weighted towards outdoor, digital and TV, radio and print. The final run up to Arthurs Day lived online, with call to action reminders for the final “push to pub”.

On the day itself, Guinness took ownership of key Dublin locations on the day itself. Routes in and out of the city, the area around the Guinness Brewery, all areas around the 32 venues where gigs were taking place and the city centre were heavily branded. The largest concentration of mobile media ever used for one brand in Ireland was deployed, comprising an army of branded bikes, cars, towers, Segways, mobile screens and actors dressed as Arthur Guinness who went into pubs and bought consumers a pint of Guinness so they could toast “To Arthur”.

Countdown clocks in key locations around Dublin counted down to 17.59 and thereafter displayed “To Arthur”. Aside from some heavy print advertising in local press, the campaign lived and breathed on Facebook, where the Guinness 250 Ireland page more than 81,000 fans. To drive consumers to the pub for the 17.59 toast, people were given the opportunity to send a virtual pint of Guinness to their friends and consider taking part in the real toast. Over a two week period 62,476 virtual pints were sent, with over half of these occurring in the two days prior to the big event.

Male awareness figures grew from 33% Dec 08 to 65% in June to 89% on Arthurs Day itself. In Dublin this figure was even higher at 94% awareness. Online, 16,008 people signed a Facebook petition to make Arthurs Day a national holiday.