Sapeurs – Guinness goes beyond advertising, with content
Documentary content as a complement to traditional advertising.
People are more and more turned off by traditional advertising, this is no secret. What has been happening lately is that brands continue to push 30-second TV ads and print advertising, but they complement it with content, useful content.
The latest installment of Guinness’s “Made of More” campaign is doing just that. The ad features men who are members of “La Societe des Ambianceurs et Personnes Elegantes” (The society of Atmosphere Setters and Elegant People), also called “Sapeurs.”
In the ad, we meet men who work physical jobs but who end their day by dressing up in stylish colourful suits at the end of each day.
This could be the end of the campaign, but Guinness went one step further and released a short documentary on who the Sapeurs are and where the movement comes from.
This is how they become useful.
By going one step further than traditional advertising.
For brands, being useful using content doesn’t necessarily mean creating a big blog or creating a TV show based on their values. It can sometimes be quite simple, yet still what one would call useful.
I invite you to view both the ad and the short documentary and see how Guinness went the content route for this one while keeping the idea simple.
The ad
