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Brewer calls for Super Bowl brand band
Newcastle Brown Ale is building on its growth in the US among millennial drinkers with an irreverent new campaign, calling on small brands to club together to pay for a Super Bowl ad.
Dubbing the campaign the “Band of Brands”, Newcastle has called for small companies to collaborate with them in “blowing our budgets together” for an ad slot during the Super Bowl, and to “chip in for an ad we can all be proud of”.
Featuring actress Aubrey Plaza – famed for her deadpan portrayal of local government worker April Ludgate in the TV comedy Parks and Recreation – the video is a dig at beer brands like Budweiser who regularly take an advertising slot during the event.
The campaign lampoons what it sees as the typical overcooked patriotism of the average Super Bowl advert, described “a great way for big brands to blow four million dollars on thirty seconds of airtime.”
It is this kind of ad that Newcastle will likely seek to turn on its head should the campaign be a success, as the brand continues to build its reputation in the US among lucrative, and typically sarcastic, millennials. The references to the “sharing economy” in the campaign video hammer this message home.
Feast your eyes on this ad, @JackMarshall, then feast your mouth on a Newcastle. #NewcastleAdAid pic.twitter.com/zvwaaiFb9q
— Newcastle Brown Ale (@Newcastle) August 22, 2014
In a similar vein, the brand recently ran the “No Bollocks” campaign, a component of which called for Twitter users to post a photo to be transformed by Newcastle into haphazard “adverts”.
Speaking to Forbes, Joshua Erenstein, founder and CEO of music marketing company LEDM, said of the Band of Brands campaign: “I think this Newcastle spot appeals to a certain type of millennial.
“The hipsters, who tend to make up Newcastle’s fan base in the first place, will have a chuckle at the references to Sidecar, Airbnb, etc. In the end, it will get people talking, and isn’t that the whole point of a big game ad in the first place?”
While the brand may still be relatively niche in the US, it is owned by big-brewer Heineken.
According to Fox News, the campaign is an attempt to “skirt the rules” over Super Bowl advertising by purchasing local airtime slots on NBC channels, as AB InBev holds exclusive national advertising rights during the game on February 1.