Future of Marketing Briefing: Inside Guinness’ go-slow approach to creators

Speaking during a live recording of the Unofficial Partner sports business podcast in partnership with agency Sid Lee, the marketer made the case for why: “The minute we start getting involved in trends and social media stuff, all of a sudden we become the dad dancing at the disco.”

Few things kill a brand’s cool faster than chasing it — and Guinness has plenty to lose these days. Carberry traces much of the turnaround to the pandemic. With the pubs shut and most suppliers chasing unpaid bills, Guinness “extended our credit to all of our customers,” he continued, and it sent its unsold beer off to fertilize Christmas trees. Landlords and bar staff noticed, and that counted for a lot, since in Carberry’s view nobody has more sway over what gets ordered than the person pulling the pint. The brand’s ads played up the wait for the pub to come back so by the time the doors reopened, Guinness was one of the pints people had missed.

Guinness’ apprehension toward creators, therefore, is understandable. Its cool was earned behind the bar and a flood of sponsored posts could undo that work faster than a badly poured pint. Creators still played their part in the revival, mind. Most of them, however, weren’t on the payroll. London’s pint-rating accounts turned judging other people’s pours into a spectator sport and Kim Kardashian and Olivia Rodrigo did the brand plenty of favors without a Diageo brief. “Splitting the G” had been doing the rounds in pubs since at least 2018 when it earned an Urban Dictionary entry. 

Over that period Guinness has nudged things along where it made sense. Its social team spent 2014 amplifying rituals drinkers had already invented and adding a layer of curated influencer partnerships. As Carberry tells it, the skill lies in knowing which moments to touch and which to leave well alone.

“While we lean into creators in appropriate ways we probably do less than you’d expect,” said Carberry. 

And yet Carberry and his team seem more connected with how people view the brand than ever. Its “Singing Pints” campaign, which launched in 2023 but was revived over the summer, was inspired by the viral #SingingGuinness TikTok Trend where pubgoers poked faces into the creamy foam head of their pints and blew across them to make the foam “mouths” open and close.

“We took what was the consumer playing with the brand and amplified it into a TV spot,” said Carberry. “That was one of most successful pieces of content for the last 10 years.” 

Creators are clearly part of Guinness’ future, just in a smaller role than the creator economy narrative would have it. Guinness seems more focused on community management and how creators fold into that. That puts it closer to where influencer marketing began. Before follower counts became a media currency, brands courted bloggers with tight-knit readerships and locals whose word carried on their own patch. The industry then spent a decade turning those relationships into a reach game. Guinness still takes part but it does so carefully.

“Guinness might not consciously be signing people up as creators, but ‘splitting the G’ has turned plenty of ordinary drinkers into exactly that,” said Jon Williams, founder and chief creative officer at Freedom Works. “They’re creating something to show their mates, in a pub, around a brand. That should be an ambition for any marketer: giving people something they want to do in real life, which then gives them something worth sharing on a screen.”

It also has less room for error than most brands. In the U.K., anyone drinking in an alcohol ad has to be, and look, over 25. The brand also can’t advertise anywhere where more than a quarter of the audience is under 18 and that’s a hard thing to promise on TikTok. The Advertising Standards Authority banned Au Vodka ads last year for exactly that, and Cranberry noted that advertising regulations are “stricter and stricter around the world.” 

What we’ve heard

“While these results are above what we expected for this quarter, this level of growth is, of course, well below the level of growth that we expect from ourselves in the future… I’m encouraged by our progress, and I am proud of our team. But I want to be very clear, we are not satisfied.”

— The Trade Desk’s CEO Jeff Green when discussing the company’s quarterly revenues during the Q3 2026 earnings call.

Numbers to know

34%: Average percentage of a brand’s video that TikTok viewers watch on the app

$3.4 million: Amount by which The Trade Desk’s revenue declined during Q3 2026

$34.1 million: Total CTV revenue that Nexxen reported during its Q3 earnings

14%: Percentage by which Nvidia’s stock dropped following the resignation of its CEO

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