Tiger Air-Ink
Tiger Beer
Issue 41 | December 2016
Agency
Marcel Sydney
Creative Team
Founder David Nobay Executive Creative Director Scott Huebscher Senior Art Director Les Sharpe Senior Copywriter Gavin Chimes Head of Art Emmanuel Bougneres Designer Brogen Averill
Production Team
Technology Partner Graviky Labs Technology Director Anirudh Sharma Head of Production Holly Alexander Production Company Goodoil Films Director Joel Kefali Post Production Palace Music Company Squeak E Clean
Other Credits
CEO Gavin Levinsohn Group Account Director Ryan Bernal Account Director Alex Buckland Account Executive Knox Cassidy Head of Strategy Iona Macgregor Strategist Cathy Song
Date
August 2016
Background
Tiger Beer was the beer of the streets: born on the streets of Singapore, enjoyed in roadside bars and street food stalls across Asia and a longstanding champion of street culture.
Unfortunately, in every major Asian city high levels of air pollution were forcing people away from the streets where they drank beer.
Tiger needed a way to reconnect consumers with the streets and inspire them to use their street smarts to do something about the pollution in the air.
Idea
To demonstrate the power of street creativity, Tiger Beer asked, 'What if we could turn the ugliness in the air into something beautiful?'
Introducing Air-Ink, the first ink made from air pollution.
Engineers and scientists were invited to help develop devices that would capture the soot from vehicle exhausts of trucks, ferries, chimneys and cranes around Hong Kong and India. The captured pollutants were then purified and turned into safe, reliable ink for everyday use.
Over 2,500 hours worth of diesel car emissions were captured, from which a range of pens, markers and spray cans were created. These were given to some of Asia's best street artists who used them to take over the streets where Tiger Beer was enjoyed. A film was created of the journey and shared online.
Results
Press around the world quickly picked up the story, from CNN to Gizmodo to Greenpeace.
The film was viewed 7.9 million times and shared on Twitter and Facebook more than 95,000 times, reaching nearly a quarter of a billion people.
Most importantly, Tiger has decided to roll out Air-Ink for future campaigns in markets across the globe.
Our Thoughts
The creative brief has changed dramatically from the days when I was trying to sell beer. We used to try to talk about 'the cool cut on the back of the throat' or some other product-y sort of claim.
Today, rather than 'what do we want to talk about?' a good brief asks, 'which conversations can we influence?'
Tiger Beer is inserting itself into popular culture by doing something rather graceful and inventive. Rather than talking about itself, the brand is getting its target audience to do the talking.
It's advertising but most certainly not as we knew it.