Guinness Cleverly Inserted Its Ice-Cold Pints Into Classic Summer Moments

When you’re thirsty, everyday objects might appear as mirages of an ice-cold drink. Guinness brings this phenomenon to life in its summer campaign, which recreates classic items of the season to look like a freshly poured beer.

Waves crashing against a rock, people reclining on a beach chair and surfboards glistening in the sun are all typical summertime images—and from a certain angle, they also evoke pints of Guinness.

The Diageo brand’s ads reimagine these sunny moments by inserting its familiar black-and-white beverage into the environments.

Guinness enlisted photographer Catherine Hyland, a London-based artist known for capturing landscapes, to shoot the images. U.K. agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO created the campaign. The ads will run across national out-of-home sites near pubs and bars, as well as social media and print.

This is a continuation of Guinness’ “Looks Like Guinness” campaign, which launched in summer 2021 to celebrate the reopening of pubs and bars in the U.K. as coronavirus restrictions lifted. That spot simply showcased common objects in the real world, such as socks hanging on a clothesline, a white cat sitting on a black rain barrel and a black trash can full of garbage, which resembled a pint of Guinness.

After pubs and bars had been closed for a long period during lockdowns, the campaign drew inspiration from the experience of seeing something you miss everywhere you look, while highlighting the recognizability of Guinness beer. It also offered financial support to pubs and bartenders in the U.K, whose hospitality industry was hard-hit by the pandemic.

“To be able to evoke a cool, refreshing, ice-cold pint of Guinness without even showing it is proof that it is one of the most recognizable and iconic beer brands in the world,” AMV BBDO creatives Ricardo Porto and Victor Bustani said in a statement.

“Our new campaign celebrates all those sunny moments that are almost in our grasp and puts Guinness at the heart of the British summer,” added John Burns, head of Guinness in Great Britain.