They used to be held on the beer ad pedestal. Okay, maybe lately they have been falling down the ranks as we have made fun of their money spending and copycatting efforts here, and here.
But still Guinness used to be synonymous with good advertising. What happened? How did their fall from grace happen? My thoughts are:
- Switching from "Worth the wait" to "It's ready for you" is wrong. Worth the wait was good. You can't make a strategy switch as dramatic as that.
- What was the deal with Darkness Reigns? Shit strategy, shit idea, shit execution.
- Finally they got cheap. After a great 1990's and early 2000's they figured they had built their brand and guaranteed future sales. So multi-million dollar production budgets became a thing of the past.
