This just made my day. I hope when I’m 90, I’m as sharp and as skilled as Jim DeBoer. Watch the video below and be prepared to be amazed. I’m not giving up any spoilers so sit back, relax and enjoy. It might be the best 6 and half minutes of your day.
Droga5 has crafted a new spot for BrewDog and I have to admit, this is one of the best 60-second spots for a beer that I have seen in quite a while. Their very clever script and VO drew me in and hooked me, making me wonder what the next bit will be as the ad progressed.
BrewDog and Droga5 demonstrate that they defy convention in the way BrewDog brews its beer culminating in the announcement that BrewDog is the world’s first carbon-negative brewery. The campaign shows the different lives that its customers and even non-customers lead, and highlights that its carbon negative credentials mean that it is here for the planet and all of its inhabitants. As the world’s first carbon-negative brewery, BrewDog offsets double its entire carbon footprint through tree planting initiatives around the world.
It also brews using renewable energy, uses packaging made from easily recycled materials, and prioritizes local ingredients, as well as transporting its beer in the UK’s first electric 19-tonne truck. Similarly, the new ‘The Planet’s Favorite Beer’ ad campaign challenges the stereotypes in traditional beer advertising, takes the worthiness out of woke, and offers a comical take on the array of people inhabiting planet earth.
The TV ad tells us that BrewDog is not just here for laughing hipsters and clichéd father-son moments; nor is it reserved for its core market of beer lovers. BrewDog is here for all the weird and wonderful people in the world: people who believe in aliens, happy couples, unhappy couples, shoplifters, vegetarians, vegetarians that lie, bad swimmers, people who meditate (but are really just thinking with their eyes closed). Some scenes feature people explicitly ignoring the product or actively rejecting it.
The key message is that BrewDog operates in a way that helps keep the planet alive – whether you drink BrewDog beer or not. The TV ad is supported by Out Of Home advertising and print ads which reinforce BrewDog’s ecological message. Headlined with ‘The Planet’s Favourite Beer’, the ads highlight what BrewDog is doing to stay carbon-negative all done with the brand’s signature humorous, light-hearted touch.
The production of all assets in the campaign has also been offset through tree planting schemes, making it a sustainable campaign in every sense of the word. As part of Droga5 London’s commitment to sustainability, each member of the agency has been granted Lost Forest citizenship and committed to planting a tree in the Forest.
I have a fairly large patio behind my house that is in direct sunlight from about 11:00 in the morning until about 6:00 in the evening. It gets a little toasty during the summer months, and while I have a patio umbrella, the umbrella doesn’t do much more than provide shade. Wouldn’t it be great if when the umbrella was extended, it could do more? Something like provide energy that could be used for a variety of things. Apparently Sammontana, Italy’s leading gelato, and frozen treats brand thought the same thing, so they teamed up with the international design and innovation firm CRA-Carla Ratti Associati to design a beach umbrella that uses solar energy to do just that.
The umbrella features an unfolding photovoltaic array that generates electric power which is then used to do things like charging your device, or run a refrigeration system. Designed in collaboration with the proponent of “transformable design” Chuck Hoberman and inspired by aerospace technologies the umbrella strives to transform how we think about products and multifunctional design. The first prototypes of the beach umbrella will be showcased in the city center of Milan, Italy, from June 12th at BAM-Biblioteca Degli Alberi Milano Park.
The beach umbrella opens like a work of origami or in a similar fashion to the solar systems on NASA spacecraft. At 2.5 meters high (8.2 feet) and a diameter of 3.2 meters (10.5 feet), the foldable photovoltaic panels on top of the umbrella absorb sunlight from the whole hemisphere and convert it into electricity, powering coolers and nebulizers underneath. In particular, for Sammontana, a mini-refrigerator allows them to keep gelato and drinks cool even during the warmest hours of the day. Electric power from either one or multiple umbrellas can be pooled together to power a large ice-cream refrigerator. The modular system is conceived to be scalable, bringing clean energy to larger public areas.
“Can we use the power of the abundant summer sunshine to make our holiday experience more sustainable?” says Carlo Ratti, founder of CRA and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “The design concept of this project starts from using the sun to produce electricity to cool the space under the umbrella – and then scale it up to provide power to any beach resort. We are delighted that Sammontana invited us to develop this project, as both our organizations share a strong commitment to environmental values and human wellbeing.”
Since 2016, Sammontana has initiated a process to reduce the environmental impact of its production activities, inspired by the principles put forward in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The program features an assessment and compensation of the CO2eq of the Sammontana products as well as a choice of the most advanced packaging solutions.
A prototype of the beach umbrella will be exhibited from June 12th to August 8th, 2021 at BAM-Biblioteca Degli Alberi Milano Park, which is an initiative of the Riccardo Catella Foundation. The installation, located in the fashionable Porta Nuova district of Italy’s design capital, creates a lounge area that can be accessed by the public free of charge, as with all the initiatives of the BAM cultural program. The project is showcased both in the stand-alone mode and in an aggregated form – featuring eleven beach umbrellas powering a refrigerator.
The Milanese test will serve as the first step to evaluate how the innovation process might accelerate and potentially be brought to Italy’s 4,970 miles coastline, promoting a more sustainable approach to summer leisure.
Grommet is a company I’ve never heard of, but after watching their brand launch video I definitely intend to check them out. Why? Because according to the video below they don’t sell boring stuff.
The in-house creative team at Grommet approached Tom Allen, co-founder, and CD at design and animation studio Buff Motion in Brighton, England to produce an animated promotional video to launch their new brand. The result is a fun little short that highlights some of the products they sell.
The goal was to develop a piece of content that would promote the platform, widen Grommet’s audience and introduce their current followers to a fresh new look. I think they nailed it. There is a nice use of color, typography, simple animations, and a solid voice-over that brings the entire package together while highlighting some of the product lines. And the shapes used seem to play off of the new Grommet logo. I say “new” because I’m not sure what the old logo looked like. This is a really nice promo that gets the message across without beating you over the head with what they are advertising. OK, time to check out the Grommet online store.
Modular 4 