Colenso BBDO

Client: DB Breweries
Product: Monteith's Patriot American Pale Ale
Title: The U.S. Seal of Approval
Media: Print
Country: New Zealand
Date Of Campaign: 01.04.2019-28.04.2019

Background: There are so many accolades and awards in the beer world - medallions, titles, little gold wreaths – that nothing stands out anymore.

Idea: To launch new Monteith’s Patriot APA, our guerilla outdoor campaign petitioned the U.S. Embassy for the greatest piece of recognition an American Pale Ale could hope for – the official U.S. seal itself. The campaign launched with an open negotiation directed at the U.S. Embassy in New Zealand, the closest America we could find. With blind optimism, we requested the seal via a mobile billboard outside the embassy, OOH around the country, and even an aeroplane banner message – all of which were personally addressed to the U.S. Embassy in the hopes of getting approval to use the seal on our APA. The Embassy noticed, as did New Zealand. And it wasn’t long before the action directed at the Embassy led to a spike in Patriot sales.

Results: The U.S. Embassy responded by email, formally declining our request. While we didn’t get the official U.S. seal, we got the country-wide recognition we needed to cement our place in the category. This print campaign fuelled online discussion in other channels, generating 4.5 million media impressions. The Monteith’s Patriot was the #1 APA launch in New Zealand. And the Monteith’s brand is now growing at 11.3%. Better yet, once the campaign was over, we received a letter asking Monteith’s to supply the beer for the Embassy’s 4th of July celebrations. If that’s not approval, we don’t know what is.