Fresh off a series of wins at the recent Canadian Brewing Awards, Moosehead Breweries is hitting the road as part of a campaign celebrating North American craftspeople.
The “To All Things Made Well” campaign officially kicked off earlier this month with a 30-second TV spot called “The Journey.” The spot shows people packing up a RV in the pre-dawn while the accompanying voiceover intones “And so we embark upon a month-long journey…to find things that have a story…things that are made by people like us…people who give a damn.”
The month-long trek across Canada and some U.S. states in a Moosehead-branded Airstream RV is also being documented in a series of video shorts on the beer brand’s YouTube and Facebook channels, and is being complemented by online banners, radio and “tactical print,” said Matt Johnston, vice-president of marketing and sales for Moosehead in Mississauga, Ont.
Created by Montreal’s Sid Lee, the “To All Things Made Well” campaign is the agency’s first work for the beer brand since taking over the account from John St. last fall.
“For a beer company to move to a new agency in the fall, get them up to speed, and have a campaign kick-off in the spring is a little chaotic, but we’ve been really happy with how things have gone,” said Johnston.
He said the creative approach is intended to reflect Moosehead’s status as an independent, family-owned company that prides itself on a well-crafted product. “We’re very proud of the beer we make and think our consumers respect well-made quality products, so we wanted to feature craftspeople that are making quality products like ours,” he said.
The campaign also marks Moosehead’s first U.S. marketing in almost a decade. While the beer brand has had a U.S. presence since the 1980s, Johnston said there is a renewed emphasis on marketing in that country after Moosehead bought back U.S. importing rights in 2007 from the Gambrinus Company, which had imported Moosehead into the U.S. for 10 years.
“We’ve done the business side to manage it properly and now it’s time to do the marketing side to really build the brand,” said Johnston. “We have some great strong markets where we think they deserve a lot more layered support.”
The company also recently appointed Elevator Communications as its PR agency, the first time it has used an external public relations firm. Media for the “To All Things Made Well” campaign was handled by Toronto’s Wills & Co.
