Imagine using the woke Disney model of hectoring your customers to sell beer to Australians. Well, it’s happening. An iconic beer brand is using the hot summer months Down Under to lecture drinkers, urging them to thoughtfully “Give a XXXX” for the environment as they consume its product.
The campaign was launched by XXXX lager mid-last year and is now in full swing.
The advertisement laments how the end of the world would lead to the end of beer, encouraging people to think before they drink and “Give a XXXX” for the future of the planet.
It further compels people to “live life like beer depends on it” as beer’s survival ultimately depends on how we treat the planet.
Brewer Lion owns XXXX, an iconic beer with a 144-year history in Australia, and the new advertising campaign has drawn critics as well as supporters.
Opponents just want to drink their beer in peace while supporters, like Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, says XXXX beer “get its right” with the “Give a XXXX” ad being about the world and environment and the importance of “stopping climate change.”
Lion’s chief marketing officer, Anubha Sahasrabuddhe, said the new campaign encourages beer drinkers to consider the things that matter to them the most – and not just the beer in front of them.
“The platform is a call to arms for beer drinkers to give a XXXX about the things that matter most to them. The idea is about embracing the growing importance and recognition of what the XXXX matters, which shows through conscious effort, people reap the rewards of a good life and things that matter to them the most across the country, ” she said when the campaign launched.
XXXX beer has a long history of television and theater advertising, previously appealing to drinkers who simply wanted to slake their thirst.
Beer has long been considered a staple of Australian life, so much so that the Australian Navy was applauded during the 2020 bushfires after one of its ships completed an emergency beer run to help resupply a pub besieged by flames and isolated from drinkers.
The emergency delivery included 20 kegs and four pallets of beer and cider for a town that usually has a population of around 1,000, as Breitbart News reported.
As recently as 2020 figures showed Australians got drunk more than any other people in the world according to a survey of 32,000 drinkers across 22 countries who took part in the Global Drug Survey 2021.
File/1988 — A sign shows the direction and distance to Mount Isa, an outback mining town. It says 190 miles to go and estimates for the average Australian this is the equivalent distance it would take to drink six small short necked bottles of beer or “stubbies”. (Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty)
The survey found Aussies “got on the beers” more than any other nation on the planet, getting drunk 27 times on average throughout the year, compared with the global average of 15 times.
Denmark and Sweden were the next highest countries for drunkenness behind Australia, with residents getting drunk 23.8 times on average in 2020.