Beyond the Brief: How ATime&Place Brewed Balter’s ‘Beers Do Come True’ Campaign with the Acronym the Universe Was Waiting For
“Believe you can have a beer. Ask for a beer. Receive a beer.” That’s the rally cry in Balter’s latest campaign, ‘Beers Do Come True’ that cheekily positions good beer as the most attainable dream of all. In this edition of Beyond the Brief, Campaign Brief chats with the writers behind the new campaign: ATime&Place Co-Founder Matt Lawson, ECD Charles Baylis, and Copywriter Andy Matthews about writing with restraint, casting the perfect anti-hero, and how constraints breed creativity.
What was the brief from Balter, and what were they hoping to achieve with this new campaign?
Matt Lawson: Essentially, bring Australia’s number one craft beer, Balter, to the mainstream.
Charles Baylis: Last campaign we showed that good beer is for everyone (not just those usually seen in beer ads) with the beer musical “We love good beer”.
Matt: And now, we wanted to show that good beer is a dream that anyone can achieve, quite easily in fact. It won’t happen overnight, but it probably will.
Andy Matthews: And as always, for Balter, do it in a way that celebrates beer, with a smile.
How did the idea of “Beers Do Come True” come about?
Matt: It came from the thought that we are being sold dreams everywhere we look, and often, they’re not attainable to all. But unlike most products, with beer, rich people don’t have a better version. So, good beer really is an attainable dream.
Andy: And all you need to do is reach out and take it! And of course, pay. And leave a tip if service has been good. It’s that simple!
Charles: And unlike most dreams, when achieved, beer is always as good as you thought it was going to be. Usually better. Especially a Balter. We actually did spend a lot of time talking about how grateful we were for beer. We are so lucky to be at the delicious end of ten thousand years of beer evolution, and, on a planet that has all the necessary ingredients for beer to come to life. And this gratitude just needed to be expressed. In a really beery way.
In a world of unattainable dreams, you’ve gone the other way and said: “This one’s within reach.” Why do you think that message hits home right now?
Andy: We feel people are getting sick of “hustle culture”; achieve your dreams with these 50 tips before 4am. So, it’s always good to puncture something that takes itself so seriously.
Matt: In tougher economic times, or any times to be honest, it’s always good to remind ourselves that simple things are great. And it shouldn’t take much to make us happy. A cold beer, some friends, a cosy pub. Perfection.
Charles: But maybe we’re even taking ourselves too seriously now. We tried to celebrate beer, have some fun with it, and maybe some of that landed.
“Believe you can have a beer. Ask for a Beer. Receive a Beer.” It’s ridiculous in the best way. What was the origin of that script, and how far did you push it before landing on the final version?
Matt: It was a simple premise: Someone tries to convince a crowd to get a beer while being the one thing stopping them from getting it. But the self-help-motivational-speaker-success-mentor world is so rich that we did enjoy going wide before reigning it in. Plus, we’re all writers, so it was only a deadline that stopped us from constantly crafting and changing things.
Charles: We also workshopped it with the Balter creative team, Ben Trueman and Stirling Howland (Stirling being one of the founders, too), and both great creatives, so it was good to have a writer’s room to throw stuff out there and see what stuck. It was fun writing for an annoying character that lacked self awareness but no confidence.
it was good to have a writer’s room to throw stuff out there and see what stuck.
Matt: I had to dig deep to find that voice.
Andy: And on the B-A-R line specifically: I feel we can’t claim credit for this line. – sometimes it feels like, if the territory is strong enough – the lines are just out there, in the universe – waiting to be plucked into existence. We were riffing this idea of the motivational speech about getting a beer, and we started saying ‘Believe you can have a beer… ask for a beer … and before we even got to “receive a beer” some part of my brain said ‘I’ve got a feeling that whatever comes next we will make this spell out BAR’ – and sure enough it did. It felt like a self-fulfilling acronym. It had been waiting for someone to say it, all this time. For hundreds of years, that word has been in front of people’s faces as they order a beer and its true meaning has finally revealed itself to us.
The lead character really does nail it. How did you approach casting, and what were you looking for in that performance?
Matt: You know what, it was brave of Balter to make the most annoying person in the ad the person holding their beer, with the rest of the pub looking at him in disdain for the entire time. He’s really an anti-hero, anti-influencer, so he did need something endearing about him or you may tune out, or hate him, and the whole ad wouldn’t sell.
Charles: We were looking for someone who on the surface doesn’t look like they have “everything”. But, they have a message of success for all. And usually, when self-righteousness rises, self awareness drops, so they had to be unaware of how they’re coming across to the people they’re preaching to.
Andy: And we knew that if that first line, “I know you look at me, and think…he’s got everything” landed, then, we’d have the audience, and also, our guy. So, we really looked for someone who could nail that.
Charles: We’re so lucky that Director Ariel Martin and ourselves found Duncan Fellows. He’s a hugely talented actor, and he’s funny because he understands comedy comes from reality. He just played the truth of this character, and with perfect timing. It’s almost impossible to imagine anybody else doing it so well.
Comedy can be notoriously hard to get right – especially in ads. What’s your approach to making something funny actually land?
Charles: Casting, of course. And timing. Comedy is a game of frames in the edit, and on the day.
Matt: And I think for this one in particular, but it is often the case, the sillier the premise the more serious you have to take it. And that’s why we were drawn to Ariel Martin’s work. He seems to find the truth in an idea and not shoot for the gag. And then we worked with an actor we trusted understood the idea, and how heartfelt this needed had to be, to be the most ridiculous.
Andy: Also, I would say that ironically, maybe one of the mistakes people make with comedy is trying to write jokes. Matt was very consistent in reminding us all to not write any, and take them out of the script if we did. When you have a core idea that is funny, that has irony built into its very framework, sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way and just let that idea play out. We reckon, and hopefully it comes across, that a person giving a motivational speech about buying a beer to an audience he is stopping from buying a beer, is an inherently funny idea. So, then you can just try and stay true to that character and that premise and the comedy will follow.
Matt: It is also good to leave room for magic on the day. We had a clear vision of what we thought would work, and be funny, the intent of each line, which Ariel shared, but he was great in ensuring room in the performance (and schedule) to improvise, and play. The little addition of “beautiful eyes” to the line, “I once knew a man who had nothing but the hope in eyes, just like you…beautiful eyes”, was improvised on the day from Duncan. It was a small ad lib but really funny, and all we needed to do was find the right person to have that said to. We knew a line of improv would help the rest of his performance feel more off-the-cuff, but it also became one of my favourite, and perhaps vital, moments in the spot. It makes our “annoying” lead instantly more endearing just when you need it. It did a lot in two words, and so, I’d just say be open to those little unplanned moments, and work them in.
From a creative point of view, what’s the biggest challenge when working in the beer category right now?
Charles: There’s so much great beer work that’s already been done. So, you need to make people thirsty, with all the cues that come with it, but avoid being cliched or going over ground that’s already been covered.
Matt: It needs to look like a beer ad, but not like another beer ad.
Andy: Then there’s the ABAC regulations, of which there are more than ever, which dictate that you can’t associate drinking beer with an emotional transformation. Of course, associating a product with an emotional transformation is pretty much route one for advertising, so while it might seem restrictive, all they’re really doing is saying you can’t be lazy. It actually drives creativity – forces you to find a new way of thinking, of making your product the central part of a conversation. I think the regs are actually one of the reasons so many great ads are beer ads.
Matt: Yep, often, creativity thrives under constraints. So, thank you ABAC. There, we’ve said it.
(Pictured above: Stirling Howland, founder, Balter and Ben Trueman, creative director, Balter)
How does “Beers Do Come True” reflect the kind of creative ATime&Place wants to put into the world?
Matt: It seems like there’s momentum behind the idea, “Beers Do Come True”, and we do hope that it’s an enduring platform for Balter. And that’s what we’re trying to do, create solid platforms that build interesting worlds. Wide worlds that allow for stories, innovation, new products, services and whatever else is needed to make a brand more meaningful, motivating and memorable.
Charles: And also, we’re always looking to create work that hijacks, or talks to the times we’re in. We’re calling this sort of idea a Zeitheist. Did we just rename topical thinking? Maybe, but it’s more fun to say, feels bigger, and is ours now as it’s in the press. Zeitheist.
Matt: And I’d say that we’re not afraid to give comedy a go. It’s not right for everything, but when it is, it’s powerful. But maybe this is me doing exactly what our hero does in the ad, selling something people already know and want, “Has anyone here tried…laughter? Think of it as a smiling hiccup scream that people seem to enjoy.”
Charles: Speaking of smiling hiccup screams, thanks to the entire Balter crew, and Ariel and the Scoundrel gang, for making this one so fun.
Matt: Absolutely, thanks, it was a real treat. Beers do come true, everybody. Beers do come true. See, people are already, and so naturally, using it in conversation. Beers do come true.
(Pictured above: Stirling Howland, founder, Balter)
Client: Balter Brewing Co
Co-Founder: Stirling Howland
Head of Marketing: Genna Nibaldi
Creative Director: Ben Trueman
Creative Agency: ATime&Place
Chief Creative Officer: Matt Lawson
Executive Creative Director: Charles Baylis
Copywriter: Andy Matthews
Senior Designer: Caity Moloney
Senior Finished Artist: Ian Lewis
Head of Broadcast: Marlese Byfield
Chief Executive Officer: Adrian Mills
General Manager: Britt Rigoni
Planning Director: Sally Denniston
Production: Scoundrel
Director: Ariel Martin
Executive Producers: Adrian Shapiro & Kate Gooden
Producer: Charlie Taylor
DOP: Max Walter
Post: ARC
Editor: Phoebe Taylor
Colourist: Fergus Rotherham
Online Artist: Richard Lambert
Producer: Cheryn Frost
Sound: MassiveMusic
Composer: Lance Gurisik
Sound Design: Simon Kane
Casting: Citizen Jane Casting