Dublin

This weekend I did 24 hours in Dublin. About 2 hours of this was at The Guinness Factory. They had an impressive collection of old Guinness advertising. I am pretty aware of the campaigns from the 2000s and 1990s, but it was the older stuff, since the start of their advertising until the 1980s, that caught my imagination.

The Guinness company was established in 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9000 year lease on the factory.
In 65 years of advertising, Guinness has only been handled by 5 agencies- SH Benson, J Walter Thompson, Allen Brady & Marsh, Ogilvy & Mather and Abbott Mead Vickers.
The famous harp logo was adopted in 1862. It was adopted as the official trademark as it was once crafted as a rare Irish instrument and so became the official trademark for the Irish Republic, and so made sense for Guinness as well.
The first advert campaign for Guinness, in 1920s, from the first agency to handle the brand, SH Benson, had the proposition that Guinness is good for you. This was created through asking people in Dublin's pubs why they drank Guinness and they answered, "Because it's good for me". At this time, nursing mothers and recovering patients used to prescribed Guinness and it was also given to people who had just donated blood. Guinness was a popular alternative to a cup of tea. So this campaign worked well at that time.

Another signature style for Guinness' campaigns were the illustrations done by John Gilroy, which were first used in 1928. The posters designed by Gilroy really caught the imagination of their audience; he was so talented at bringing a character to life that he was contacted by Walt Disney who tried to get him to Hollywood to work in his animation cinema. Gilroy politely declined.
Gilroy's involvement with the Guinness campaigns coincided with the dawn of the TV ad.

John Gilroy's illustrations at the Guinness Factory.

Gilroy's advert, 'Guinness for Strength' was so popular that people started to ask for a 'Girder' instead of a Guinness when they ordered their drink.

The famous Guinness Toucan actually started out in 1935 as a Pelican; balancing 7 pints on his beak, the copy read, 

"A wonderful bird is the pelican,

 its bill can hold more than its belly can.

 It can hold in its beak

 Enough for a week; 

I simply don't know how the hell he can."

Then, Dorothy L Sayers, a famous novelist at the time, was asked to write a new rhyme, in which she turned the pelican into a toucan. The copy read,

"If he can say as you can,

Guinness is good for you,

how grand to be a Toucan,

Just think what Toucan do."

'Tookie' as he was named then became the advert for over 40 years in TV, press and promotional material. He last appeared in 1982.

The 1980s saw Guinness take on a new campaign; Pure Genius.

Rumour has it that this advert campaign came around after 2 creatives from Ogilvy and Mather were locked in a hotel room and told not to come out until they had a winning campaign. After 3 days, they had nothing. On the third day, one of them wrote down on a piece of paper 'Genius'. This lead to Pure Genius. Showing that like Guinness, good things come to those who wait.

The 'Pure Genius' campaign then took on famous actor Rutger Hauer in 1987 to represent the brand. He looked just like the pint itself; blonde hair and black clothes. These adverts appeared on British screens for 8 years. It is said to have ended because Rutger Hauer started to embody the brand a bit too much. However, I couldn't find anything online to support that rumour. 

PR News Wire (2010) Guinness Comes To Those Who've Waited [Online] Available from: http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=21223 [Accessed: 22nd November 2010]


The Independent (2005) Head of the Class: The Best of Guinness [Online] Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/head-of-the-class-the-best-of-guinness-745985.html [Accessed: 22nd November 2010]