Guinness: Good things don't come from rounding up your mates.

Marketing Professor's wearing tweed jackets in dusty Lecture Theatres up and down the Country have long celebrated the genius of Guinness's television advertising. Who can forget the galloping horses in glorious black and white which ushered in an era of creative concept and highly visual imagery to build a brand? Whatever your view it is safe to say that you cannot argue that Guinness has spent considerable time and effort building a strong, durable and enduring brand image.

Imagine then my shock that Guinness have appeared to throw away that strong legacy of impressive advertising with their recent #RoundUpYourMates campaign.

http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/guinness-jonathan-ross-ad-experiment-backfires/4008379.article

The public backlash of the extended advertisements during The Jonathan Ross Show demonstrates the negative perception towards the new marketing scheme for Guinness. But can you blame one of Ireland's greatest exports with doing something unique and innovative? One look at the Guinness website quickly outlines how much importance and emphasis Guinness has placed on the campaign. You certainly wouldn't be able to tell from the current coverage Guinness is giving the campaign that them they feel as if they are doing something wrong.

http://www.guinness.com/en-gb/roundupyourmates/

It was only a year and a half ago that Guinness first struck success with the RoundUpYourMates television and YouTube advertisement. Take one look at the comments left for the below video and you can see that there is no doubting the success of the messaging used in this concept. You may therefore be forgiven for thinking that surely what happened then would continue to be met with the same critical acclaim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07at1bU89Q

So what's the big problem with the concept this time around? Why have the masses appeared to have turned on the 'Mates' concept quicker than an Irishman downing a pint of the black stuff on St Paddy's Day? The Brand Avenger believes 'the Twits' (my endearing term for the many tweeters out in the Universe) anger at Guinness isn't suggesting that the overall message is entirely flawed, rather the implementation. It is clear from some of the main themes generated by Twitter that todays consumer don't like being insulted or duped. Guinness execution of Mates in between actual content from Jonathan Ross's show just wasn't smart or intriguing enough to strike a positive chord with those customers who decided to tune in Saturday night. The next time Guinness want to launch a campaign maybe they should look to understand their mates a little better rather than treating them like mugs.