Meet the team behind Guinness’ latest advert in Africa

Tell us about the new Brothers campaign for Guinness in Africa, what was the thinking behind it? 

After launching our new brand platform, Black Shines Brightest, last year, we wanted to showcase what it means for our work in football. In Africa, Guinness is the number one beer brand associated with football which presented us with an opportunity to showcase Black Shines Brightest through the lens of the sport. Fans are at the heart of football and nothing else represents Black Shines Brightest more than fans who are going out of their way, using creative ingenuity to make the game brighter for all. This was what led us to Miracle and Abidemi’s story. 

Why did Guinness choose to create a campaign that focused on football and accessibility?  

As a business, through our Progressive Marketing commitments, Diageo has a responsibility to represent all of society in its most beautiful form, and this is no different for Guinness as a brand. Just a couple of years ago, we launched a campaign called Her Home Advantage in Cameroun. It followed our sponsorship of the Women’s football league and highlighted the fact that women’s potential is sparked when they have the backing of their home support. For this new football campaign, we set out to tell the stories of extraordinary fans who go out of their way to make the game more positive, more accessible and more enjoyable.  

Tell us about Miracle, why was he chosen as the lead character and was he involved behind the scenes as well as on camera? 

Miracle is an incredible person. From the moment he walked into the room to record his casting tape to the moment he walked off the set, he connected with every single person he met and left an unforgettable impression on all of us. He is super energetic and despite his disability, he is always glowing with positivity. After we landed the script, we knew we wanted to cast a blind actor to ensure the on-screen story was authentic, but we didn’t really know what else to expect. Miracle not only did justice to the script, but he added even more value by giving us more insights into his life and this helped us make important changes and choices that elevated the work.  

What was your personal highlight from the shoot and what was the biggest challenge? 

My personal highlight from the shoot must be working with Miracle. Many of us had no prior experience of working with a blind or visually impaired lead character, but Miracle was no different from any other actor. He joked all the time and got everyone laughing. He kept the energy levels up and he was always ready to go above and beyond in every scene. At the end of the day, working with him and ensuring he delivered every scene exactly as we planned, which we had thought could be our biggest challenge, turned out to be the best part of the shoot.     

What’s next for the Black Shines Brightest campaign?  

Following the successful launch of our brand platform, Black Shines Brightest, we want to build on it across all our key growth areas for the brand. Within football we have introduced our consumers to amazing people like Miracle who are contributing their quota to making the big, beautiful game of football brighter for people around them. We won’t stop at just telling these stories – as a brand, we are also looking into ways we can join in and help to make football even more accessible. We will share more details in the coming months – watch this space!