The Unbranded Ad
Tempo
Issue 37 | December 2015
Agency
McCANN Tel Aviv
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Sigal Abudy Creative Director Naor Itzhak Copywriter Eddie Gartsman
Production Team
Production Company Go-T
Other Credits
Ben Muskal Daniela Klinger Rotem Mizrahi Alon Leibovich Ravid Tiber
Date
July 2015
Background
For about 50 years, Goldstar Beer's brand essence had been all about manhood, summed up in the line: "Thank god you're a man" Every campaign had created buzz until in 2015 the regulators stepped in. It was every advertising company's nightmare come alive. It was decreed that no TV advertising for any alcohol brand could show anything except a bottle and a logo.
Idea
Because Goldstar's brand values were so strongly rooted in popular culture, they were able to run a branded commercial without any brand. The TV commercial showed everything that was now outlawed. Women, men, a bar. What it didn't show was a product. But it did show the endline, 'Thank God you're a man'.
The regulators couldn't not let it run. And everyone knew what it was about and which brand it was for.
Results
As soon as the ad had aired on the main TV channels, it became the most talked about issue in the country. Sales increased by 3% in the month after airing. Social conversation about Goldstar increased with more than 78,000 mentions on Facebook and over 120,000 people Googled the brand name.
Our Thoughts
If ever you wondered if there was any real value in brand equity, here you have it. Yes. It's a great example of a brand being relevant and topical, not following culture but leading it. Goldstar managed to turn the banning of humour and any sort of imagery in alcohol advertising into a national issue, discussed and debated by hundreds of thousands of people. In bars, over a beer. And judging from the sales hike of 3%, over a Goldstar.