About 25 years ago, I used to work with a lovely senior strategist called Jeremy Thorpe-Woods. Well, I say 鈥渓ovely鈥, but most of our interaction seemed to consist of him taking the piss out of me for being Scottish. In fact, even after I moved on, his patter didn鈥檛; his gentle teasing continued on social media every time my nation suffered a sporting disaster (which is to say 鈥渜uite often鈥). So given the ridicule I鈥檝e taken over the decades, it鈥檚 just as well that he helped create one of my favourite campaigns ever 鈥 and also (inadvertently) one of my few personal highlights of 2020.
I鈥檒l deal with the campaign first. There are so many things I love about Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO鈥檚 masterpiece for Guinness: 鈥淕ood things come to those who wait.鈥
For starters, the strategy was inspired. It took an apparent product weakness (delay) and turned it into a strength (anticipation). As repositionings go, it was pretty audacious, and yet the logic never felt like a stretch.
On top of that, the idea was impeccably well-branded. The line was so rooted in the product that it could only have come from Guinness. In fact, the campaign鈥檚 whole look and feel was so semiotically on point that you could have taken off the logo and there would still have been no mistaking the brand.聽
Finally, the executions themselves were flawless, from the stirring storytelling of "Swimblack" and "Surfer" to the more conceptual genius of "Noitulove".
So, to be honest, I didn鈥檛 think I could love this campaign any more. But then last year something happened to me that took my affection for the idea to a whole new level. Something utterly freakish.
Like a lot of people these days, I had been doing a bit of research into my family tree.
Despite Jeremy鈥檚 insults, I already knew that most of my ancestors were actually Irish (maybe that鈥檚 another reason I like my Guinness). But, beyond that, I was coming up against a brick wall. My dad had recently passed away and he鈥檇 been an only child, of a single mother, so there weren鈥檛 many clues there. To make things even messier, his own father had been brought up in Glasgow鈥檚 care system and had lived a very difficult and often chaotic life. As a last resort, I did a DNA test, but didn鈥檛 really expect to find out much more.
Then, one day, a very nice lady from Chiswick connected with me out of the blue. Susie explained that she had been searching for her own grandfather for many decades. And judging by our shared DNA (off the scale, compared with the usual matches on these sites), we must be extremely closely related. First cousins, to be exact. After a bit more digging, we established that my grandfather had also been her grandfather 鈥 and that my dad had had two half-sisters he never knew about (one of whom was Susie鈥檚 mum).
Now here鈥檚 the important bit. The freakish bit. The bit that gives me the slenderest excuse to tell this story in 北京赛车pk10. Susie had once worked in advertising too. And she turned out to be Jeremy鈥檚 wife.
To be honest, I鈥檓 not entirely sure why I鈥檓 telling you this. Maybe it鈥檚 such a bizarre and personal coincidence that it鈥檚 of no interest to anybody else 鈥 in which case, apologies for the oversharing.
But, as you can imagine, this blew my mind. And Susie鈥檚. And Jeremy鈥檚. The discovery of an 80-year-old secret was pretty extraordinary in the first place. But the fact it involved someone I already knew and who had no obvious link with my part of the world (let alone the derelict flat in where our grandfather grew up) was just incredible.聽
Now, I won鈥檛 bore you with the convoluted details of how all this unfolded over the decades and 500 miles apart. But maybe the broader lesson is that, despite our understandable focus on short-term changes, life really marches to a slower, steadier beat. Driven by deep motivators like love, desperation, hope and aspiration that can rip families apart and bring them back together again. The kind of enduring human traits that Bill Bernbach advised us to think about, instead of this year鈥檚 latest trend.
Alternatively, it might just be a welcome reminder that life can still bring pleasant surprises, even in dark times.
Either way, I鈥檓 glad that I finally got the last laugh on Jeremy. Because, after 25 years of piss-taking, he now has to be nice to his newest family member.
鈥淕ood things come to those who wait," as I said to him smugly. I hope they come to you, too, this year.
Andy Nairn is founding partner of Lucky Generals