If the people at Guinness had their way, everyone would hang green tinsel in their houses to celebrate the St. Patrick’s Day season. In a new spot directed by Marcos Siega of bicoastal/international Hungry Man, out of BBDO New York, the company promotes the idea that St. Patty’s Day should be treated like a proper holiday with all of the trimmings—including, of course, Guinness beer.
The :30 "St. Patrick’s Day Morning," likens the early hours of March 17 to the excitement of Christmas morning. The spot opens to the sound of jingling bells and a version of "Irish Eyes Are Smiling" that has been arranged to sound like a Christmas tune. As sunlight streams into his bedroom, a young man awakens with a joyful expression. In slow motion, he jumps out of bed and goes to rouse a sleeping roommate, telling him, "It’s St. Patrick’s Day!" The two guys then run across the hallway together and yell into another bedroom, "It’s St. Patrick’s Day!" As the men rush downstairs, a third guy barrels out of his bedroom in green-and-white pajamas—a large four-leaf clover displayed on the front of his shirt.
At the base of the stairs, the men pause, awestruck at what lays before them. By the window is a shining keg of Guinness, surrounded by presents wrapped in green and white.
The men fall to their knees beside the "tree" and start to rip open the gifts, which are all bottles of Guinness. A green screen appears with the super: "Treat St. Patrick’s Day like a real holiday." One last glimpse of the giddy men shows them still on the floor by the keg, with the Guinness Draught logo at the top right corner of the screen.
SEASONAL JOY
The core creative team at BBDO New York—creative directors/art directors/copywriters Gerry Graf (now executive creative director at TBWA/ Chiat/Day, New York) and freelancer Harold Einstein—decided to go with Siega based on spotwork he’d done for them in the past for Doritos and Red Stripe. "[Harold and I] have a lot of fun when we shoot with Marcos, and that’s what the spot needed," related Graf.
Siega also noted that reuniting with the BBDO team was a main draw for him. "Gerry and Harold have a tendency to have fun with the ideas and not be locked into [anything]," he said. "They’re always trying to think outside of the box, which frees the director up tremendously." The concept appealed to Siega as well. "[The theme is] something very universal and easy to understand," he observed. "I just love the idea of doing it with adults and with beer."
Since many people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, the challenge came in portraying the day in a different way, Graf said. After tying it to the number one holiday in his mind—Christmas—the rest flowed easily and was influenced by the movie A Christmas Story. As he explored this comparison, he said the jokes and parallels became obvious. St. Patrick would replace St. Nicholas, the keg would stand in for the tree and, naturally, they would give each other beer.
Siega said that during casting, he looked for three men who appeared to be old friends—perhaps they had attended the same college and moved in together after graduation. Although the three actors in the spot—Liam Sullivan, Dustin Fasching and Jay Lay—did not say much, their roles were pivotal. "Casting was huge," Graf said. "We had a number of rounds to get the first guy who wakes up. [He had to be able to do a] kid’s expression on Christmas morning … so that was the tough one to get, but after we got him, it got a lot easier."
Editing also played a large role in the final product, since the slow-motion effect was created in post, according to Graf. Ian MacKenzie cut the spot out of MacKenzie Cutler, New York. "The concept was funny and the music was brilliant," MacKenzie said, "but when we first put the spot together, it was just a little bit flat. So we racked our brains, trying to figure out how to fix it, and then came up with the slow motion. … It made the silliness more apparent, and it also played into the childlike experience of Christmas morning."
The concept of scoring a traditional Irish tune to sound like a Christmas song was planned early on in the process. Andrew Sherman arranged and conducted the piece out of Fluid, New York, with Brad Stratton serving as music producer and David Shapiro as executive producer.
A second spot in the campaign, "St. Patrick’s Time," is also currently airing.
