Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Ambushing the Fourth of July By Tim Nudd

Newcastle Brown Ale had a big hit with its "If We Made It" ambush campaign around the Super Bowl. Now, the British brewer has done something similar for July 4.

The new campaign, from Droga5, is called "If We Won," and it imagines what America would be like if Britain had won the Revolutionary War. It also continues the tradition, begun last year, of celebrating July 3 as Independence Eve—so the Brits can sneak in with their bangers and mash ahead of Independence Day on July 4.

It's all a bunch of bollocks, of course—or rather, no bollocks.

Stephen Merchant kicks things off with the amusing video below. Elizabeth Hurley and Zachary Quinto will join the campaign with their own videos in the coming days. There will be 16 pieces of filmed content in all, "to help Newcastle celebrate the land that nearly became 'Great Britain 2,' " the brewer says.

"It's not easy to sell a British beer during a supremely American holiday, so we're imagining how great America could have been—and how much beer we could have sold—if the Brits had won the Revolutionary War," says Quinn Kilbury, brand director for Newcastle Brown Ale, who spoke to Adweek earlier this month about the brand's Facebook advertising.

"In the late 1700s, colonial Americans risked life and limb to fight for their freedom. Today, we're running the very real risk of people totally not getting the joke here, and we think that's pretty patriotic."