Brief: Establish and revitalise Carling as a disruptive, "real" brand in football, appealing to the entire demographic of football fans, but primarily the new generation of lager drinkers; males aged 18-34. Internally, we call them Lad 2.0.

Role: Creative lead, including art direction.

Deliverables: A cross-platform campaign that encompasses digital and OOH. This campaign is yet to launch, hence the private page, but I am very proud of it's simplicity and potential.

Carling has a deeply engrained reputation amongst football fans - and this is not always a good thing.

To achieve our aims we had to immediately unshackle Carling not only from it's previous reputation but also from the world of cynical modern football sponsorship, in which brands - especially beer brands - too often claim to be "for fans", but in reality offer nothing of any value whilst preaching their paper thin brand message.

The central idea of the campaign - alongside some other original content formats - was to create a hotline: The Carling Call-In. Fans would be encouraged to call via Carling "Tap" app integrations, real-world phone instalments in pubs and a good old fashioned 0800 number, pouring their hearts out to us in outrage and ecstasy, from elation to hopelessness - the glorious spectrum of football passion.

The most poetic and visceral accounts would become the backbone of our campaign. The funniest idiosyncrasies, wittiest insights and most poignant tributes blown up on billboards, printed on beer mats, and animated into 60-second Facebook and Instagram videos with an original and own-able aesthetic, to be distributed at scale across the COPA90 network of publishers. Instead of the brand preaching a one-way message, fans truly became the heart of the campaign, and instead of trying to be wry, smart or 'everyone's mate' - the brand became the ultimate facilitator, hero-ing the real beating heart of football: the fans.

A message recorded in a pub minutes after a frustrating or elating result would be there, in the same pub, days later, shouting from a beer mat or a billboard outside. What a feeling for the fans, and what a position for Carling to adopt - genuinely giving something back whilst sidestepping the cynicism of both traditional call-ins and of corporate sponsorship.

A taster 10-second mock-up to showcase the potential of pure, unfiltered positivity.

And right at the other end of the spectrum, raw, beautiful anger. 

A mock-up of potential type treatment - stripped back, the words are the core of the campaign.

In-situ mock-up of a billboard - which could even be installed with a phone that could be used to directly record a message from outside of a stadium. 

Targeted pub toolkits would be sent to a few choice fan 'destination' pubs in each of the 20 Premier League cities.

App integration was vital for Carling, and the "Tap" app could be used for submissions, rewards for those who entered and for distribution of the content amongst the existing community. 

Using Format