Beer Heroes
UBREW
Issue 52 | September 2019
Agency
McCann Milan
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer, McCann Milan: Alessandro Sabini Creative Directors, McCann Milan: Eoin Sherry, Fernando Dominguez Creative President McCann Europe: Adrian Botan Head of Copy McCann London: Mike Oughton
Production Team
Digital Director, McCann Europe: Mike Cooper Head of Social: Nicola Guarino Head of Production: Michele Virgilio Project Manager, McCann Milan: Valentina Catese Creative Excellence Manager: Carmen Bistrian Production House: Think Cattleya
Other Credits
Media Agencies: UM London, Reprise London PR: Weber Shandwick London
Date
May 2019
Background
UBREW is a craft brewery based in London where beer aficionados can brew their own beer. It’s an ‘open’ brewery that operates as a member’s club. Members come and use the professional equipment to make their own beers and design their own labels. For non-members there is a fridge stocked with craft beers from around the world and a calendar of brewing workshops.
Idea
Over the years, the internet has captured and immortalised some of the most epic beer-saves the world has ever seen. There was the lead singer of the band, who caught a beer thrown his way while crowd surfing. There was the canoeist who managed to keep his beer from going underwater while his kayak rolled over. But despite getting millions of views, these beer heroes were anonymous.
So Ubrew set out to identify them and find the world’s unsung beer heroes.
Having tracked down three of them, they were brought to London, where they got to brew their own beers with special flavours and personalised labels. Their stories were turned into YouTube documentaries, driving traffic to the website where would-be brewers could sign up to create their own beer with a 40% discount.
Results
The Kayak Amphibian (aka Pyper Dixon from Bozeman Montana) has had nearly 150,000 views. https://youtu. be/9d6OWamEdDg The Amazing Crowd Surfer (aka David Achten de Molen from Amsterdam) has 152,000 views. https://youtu.be/ eRsstb9v3U0
Our Thoughts
I don’t know what I like most, the idea of the business itself – which is to take all the big, shiny equipment you need to brew beer in vast quantities and scale it down in size and volume in South London for hobbyists and experimentalists. Or the documentaries, which are enjoyably gentle parodies of the genre.
For a relatively small business, this is brave stuff, to make a couple of films and use charm as a sales tool. It’s worked for me. I can definitely see a couple of team outings happening at Ubrew.