This summer, Guinness and Corona each launched their largest global marketing campaigns to date, leveraging iconic sporting events to reach audiences worldwide. Both brands aimed to balance global appeal with local relevance, but which campaign succeeded in creating a cohesive, truly global concept?
This article is based on an excerpt from our recent LinkedIn Live where our CMO, Katie Roberts and our CEO, Kevin Freedman, discussed how to get your ‘glocal’ creative right in international campaigns. Click here to watch the full conversation here on the LinkedIn replay.
Guinness launched its largest-ever global campaign to celebrate its new role as the official beer and non-alcoholic beer of the Premier League, running in over 70 countries across Europe, Africa, and Asia. The campaign features four major creative routes, each spotlighting the universal connection between football fans and Guinness.
‘Eriskay’ shows a football game in a tight-knit island community in the UK, ‘Rooftop’ captures mall workers in Seoul playing on a rooftop. ‘Brothers’ highlights sibling connections in Africa, while ‘Replay’ dives into the challenges of avoiding spoilers in Asia. Additional components include global out-of-home ads, retail branding, and custom Guinness delivery trucks branded for each Premier League club. By weaving together these football stories across the world, Guinness aims to solidify its role in global matchday traditions, uniting fans worldwide with a pint in hand.
While the ads are beautifully shot and capture the brand’s signature emotive storytelling, Katie and Kevin felt the campaign could have had a more cohesive brand platform. The multiple creative routes do a great job of celebrating regional football culture but felt more like standalone local campaigns, tenuously linked by the theme of football. Without a singular creative concept tying everything together, this approach sacrificed the opportunity to elevate the brand’s presence across all markets with a stronger, more memorable global identity.
Corona Cero’s ‘Golden Moments’ campaign, marks the first official global beer sponsor of the Olympic Games. The campaign emphasizes relaxation and celebration rather than competition, embodying Corona’s ethos. This is delivered through the concept of ‘Golden Venues,’ where seats from the Paris Olympic Games are placed at iconic sunset destinations worldwide, including London’s Thames Riverfront, Rio’s Arpoador Beach, Athens’ Grand Peninsula, and Café Del Mar in Cartagena.
The campaign spanned 40+ markets, reaching across media channels and featuring Olympics-themed bottles in select locations. Through experiences, influencers, and Olympic broadcast integration, Corona aimed to inspire audiences globally to embrace their “Golden Moments” in nature, celebrating relaxation in parallel with the Olympic spirit.
For this campaign, Corona took a cohesive, globally-minded approach as it has clearly been designed with multiple markets in mind. By setting the campaign in iconic outdoor backdrops worldwide, it not only brings the joy of a Corona Cero to life across multiple cultural contexts but also reinforces Corona’s brand globally and in a consistent way. As the world’s most valuable beer brand, Corona skilfully leveraged the universal appeal of the Olympics to amplify its message – a strategic and well-executed approach to resonate across markets!
Both are amazing campaigns but Corona takes the win for us on this occasion! The universal brand platform is a great example of a well-designed campaign for multi-market use. Of course, as we are going off publicly available information, we can’t comment on which campaign was more successful for the respective brands. But in our experience, a consistent creative used globally will resonate more strongly and is a more effective way to produce international campaigns!
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