The Guinness brand idea is ‘Made of More’. A celebration of people with substance, character and integrity because Guinness is a beer with more substance, character and integrity than other mainstream beers.

One of the main activation pillars within Made of More is rugby. It’s a sport characterised by those same values, and Guinness has a long and proud association with the game.

The problem we needed to solve in 2015 was that England were hosting the Rugby World Cup. That might not sound like too much of a problem, but it meant that numerous brands would be jumping on the rugby bandwagon at the time of the tournament. And to make matters worse, Guinness weren’t an official sponsor, Heineken were. At a time when all eyes would be on the game, Guinness risked losing its proud status as the brand most associated with rugby.

This couldn’t be allowed to happen, so Guinness came up with the very clear objective to win the battle of the Rugby World Cup advertisers – and hijack the rugby world cup.

The insight we used to shape our thinking was that the physical nature of rugby is the most remarkable feature of the sport, and is therefore what most other advertisers would use as the focus of their communications.

Guinness therefore needed to uncover rugby stories that were removed from, and indeed could eclipse any story of mere rugby physicality. Rugby stories Made of More.

And we found our best example in Gareth Thomas. A welsh rugby legend who was the first openly gay, professional rugby player. What’s more, he chose to come out whilst still playing for and captaining his country, as opposed to waiting until he’d retired. In digging deeper into his story, we learnt that Thomas had suffered huge emotional turmoil during the years he’d kept his sexuality secret. He desperately wanted to be honest about himself, but was terrified he would be ostracised from the sport he loved.

Beyond hero broadcast content, we also took out approach of telling Rugby stories Made of More into social media, cherry picking the greatest examples of rugby character from the tournament and creating content around them in real time.

Overall the campaign delivered for the brand and business, defending market share and establishing Guinness as the beer of the World Cup – despite not being an official sponsor.