The brief from the British Beer Alliance was a brilliantly simple one. Get U.K. chancellor Phillip Hammond to freeze the beer tax and in turn save the great British pub. This immediately felt bigger than an ad campaign. It needed to behave like a government message and drive support like propaganda. It also had an hard hitting statistic at it’s core - 3 pubs a day close their doors for good. So a CTA campaign to get the public signatures was produced.
It needed a simple call to arms and rallying message. Long Live The Local was born complete with a ‘Pintsclamation’ mark. The art direction drew inspiration from old hand made campaigns featuring bold colours, a mix of typefaces and photography by Ewen Spencer. This graphic approach alongside emotional copywriting got the message out all over the U.K.
It launched with an emotive film (directed by Tom Green), 32 unique posters (In thousands of media sites) and a simple website to collect signatures and letters sent to local MPs. Oh and 1.5 million beer mats to really get to the heart of the issue.
It racked up millions of views, love on social media and most importantly, got over 100,000 signatures to freeze the beer tax. Which it was when it was announced in the Budget from Hammond himself.
