SHAPING WHAT’S NEXT IN MEDIA

Last chance to save on Digiday Publishing Summit passes is February 9

SECURE YOUR SEAT

Steinlager Beer’s Sobering Solution to Drunken Idiocy

There’s a time-honored tradition of punishing passed-out drunk by doodling on their limp bodies.  A new campaign from Steinlager, a New Zealand beer company, has embraced this popular prank, but is hoping to use it, oddly enough, to encourage responsible drinking

“Be the Artist, Not the Canvas,”created with the help of DDB Auckland, has a commercial and print ads that feature a bunch of drunk dudes, blissfully unaware that an “artist” is inking all over their skin. There’s also an online “artwork gallery” of the campaign images, showcasing the work of the artist. Users can click through title cards that poke fun at stuffy museum descriptions with sentences like, “By employing bold cartoon-like imagery he subverts the outer adult and omnipresent inner child to great effect.”

As funny as it is, Steinlager is serious about sensible drinking habits. The campaign makes sure that those who drank to the point of blacking out are pathetic figures. There’s the shirtless, bleary-eyed guy who stumbles to open the fridge who finds that he’s wearing a drawing of a polka dot bra along with “Thug Life” written across his abdomen.

“As much as we want to encourage budding artists, we’d rather there were no canvases for them to draw on,” the campaign’s site implores.

More in Marketing

GLP-1 draws pharma advertisers to double down on the Super Bowl

Could this be the last year Novo Nordisk, Boehringer Ingelheim, Hims & Hers, Novartis, Ro, and Lilly all run spots during the Big Game?

How food and beverage giants like Ritz and Diageo are showing up for the Super Bowl this year

Food and beverage executives say a Super Bowl campaign sets the tone for the year.

Programmatic is drawing more brands to this year’s Winter Olympics

Widening programmatic access to streaming coverage of the Milan-Cortina Games is enabling smaller advertisers to get their feet in the door.