It took a single block of flats and a space where neighbors meet everyday but rarely talk - an elevator -to fix broken neighborly relationships among Poles. We turned it into a place designed for meeting other people: a Tyskie’s bar. Tenants from nearby residences came over to see what the installation was all about . Most of them experienced the brand like never before and consequently agreed to be a part of a video made during the event. Their natural reactions created a unique piece of branded content that sparked a debate about openness of our nation.

Tyskie is the most popular beer brand in Poland with over 400 years long heritage of bringing Poles together, despite differences. Sadly, Poland is a divided nation and the gap between people is growing bigger and deeper fueled by political tensions. Poles are much more hostile and distrustful of one another than less a decade ago, and the neighborly relationships - once very strong - are falling apart. Half of all Poles doesn’t even know the first name of their immediate neighbor.

In response to growing divisions, Tyskie launched in 2008 a new communication platform “Let’s stop being so formal”. The objective was to create an activation that would really bring Poles together and draw their attention to the new opening in Tyskie's communication.

There is a place where neighbors meet every day, stand hand in hand, sometimes they drop a polite “good morning”. An elevator. We seem to have a nodding acquaintance, but it’s still more convenient to stare at your phone while avoiding the awkward small talks than to reach out and start a conversation.

We decided to change it. We created a social experiment, where we turned an ordinary elevator into a place designed for meeting other people: a Tyskie’s bar. The Tyskie elevator surprised the local community and brought neighbors together. We recorded their genuine reactions to make a short documentary that we shared on our social media.

Tyskie is the most popular and democratic lager in Poland. However, the brand’s core target group are people from medium to big cities with an average income. Most of them live in blocks of flats. Most housing estates in Poland still echo the communist times as they were built and maintained by communities of tenants that would spend their whole lives in on apartment without ever moving. Poles are very sentimental about these good old times spent together watching TV or sitting on a bench in front of the block for the entire weekend. Today, housing estates are increasingly more guarded, fences are getting higher, and social media stole the eye contact. As a result, neighbors turned into complete strangers, although they live only meters away.

We found the issue very insightful and decided to address the problem of neighborly relationships form the brand stand-point.

We found a perfect 17-story block of flats in a post-soviet housing estate, where a large number of residents made people feel alienated and anonymous. We interviewed the residents before the experiment began. We asked them about their neighborly relations, how it used to be in the past in comparison to the present. Then, a fake repair crew closed the elevator in order to secretly turn it into a real bar equipped with hidden cameras and, of course, beer. The elevator got moving and recorded reactions and relations of the surprised tenants throughout the day. At the end of a day, a several dozen neighbors threw an impromptu party in the corridor of the last floor of the block. Well, that was the first time ever. We made a two-and-a-half-minute long documentary of the experiment, which we posted to our fanpage.

Our small scale experiment won the hearts of Poles, gained 60 publications in domestic and foreign media and brought over 21m media impressions. It triggered a discussion about neighborly relations even in the lifestyle media, which usually reject beer advertising. We received over 99.5% positive reactions on social media, which is an unprecedented result for a mainstream brewery (leading beer manufacturers struggle continuously with negative comments on beer quality and mass production).

People got inspired by our story and started to make over their blocks of flats with simple post-it notes like „Good Morning neighbors” in elevators and in social media. And we got requests from every corner of the country to make over more elevators. And it all started with a small elevator bar.