Joe Montana
Diageo
This year while you’re watching the big game, you might notice a familiar face to the field in one of the ads: Joe Montana. Montana is starring in this year’s ad for Guinness, a tribute of sorts of the GOAT in all of us.
Here’s a little preview:
“We actually were shooting our Notre Dame work with Joe, when this conversation actually started,” says Jay Sethi, CMO of Diageo Beer. “And then as we were approaching the end of the year and this timing, we just sort of kept asking ourselves, what does it really mean? It’s in the first line of the ad, what does it mean to be the greatest of all time?”
He says that the brand started to think about what we could learn from the greats like Joe and their resilience, success, and optimism, and then what broader message there might there for American to help it look forward after a difficult year.
While the face of the brand in this ad and a some previous campaigns, Montana wasn’t always a Guinness fan, in part because he hadn’t had a chance to try it.
“Because, you know, like, we talked about the commercial, it looks dark and heavy. And then till you try it, and it’s totally different than what you expected,” says Montana. He had his first pint in the beer’s birthplace, Ireland.
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He was on a trip looking at horses, and one of the trainers suggested that they go grab a pint after they were done for the day.
“So we went and he went up in order, and then he came back and sat down and he didn’t have a beer in his hand. And this kind of goes back to the first commercial. What about the wait for it? It said, because I got worried. ‘What are you doing, Charlie? Where’s beer?’ ‘You gotta wait for it because it has the pour and went through the whole thing. And from that day on, every getting close to lunchtime, I was going, Charlie, I think it’s time for a pint.”
That first beer, started a trend for Montana and that waiting for the “perfect pour” of the beer was the theme of a previous ad he shot for the brewery.
“That’s where I fell in love with it over there. Ever since then I look for it over here whenever I possibly can and wherever we go. Obviously, we’re not going very many places right now.”
That story is represented a bit in the ad.
“So even in the last four lines that says ‘Here’s the greatest player we don’t know, the greatest play we haven’t seen, the greatest beer you maybe haven’t tried. It’s almost a direct line from Joe,” says Sethi,
He says that while normally a brand wouldn’t want to say that, because obviously they hope everyone has tried it, a lot of people still haven’t tried a Guinness because they expect it to be a heavy beer or one high in alcohol — it’s actually neither.
While the ad will be running during the game in some markets, namely in Chicago, San Francisco, and Orlando and a few others during the pre and post-game, it’s not a big Super Bowl ad like you might see from some other brands.
“We actually haven’t run an ad in the big game for over a decade, and so it’s definitely not what we normally do. And we’re not even looking to try to set a different benchmark, so much as this is a unique time, and we have Joe Montana, and when you put those two things together, and when the team came back with the script, it’s just too good not to,” says Sethi.
The messaging of the ad is also something that Montana says makes the timing perfect.
“It’s perfect timing. This is a crazy time. We have to learn to be resilient. We have to be able to fight back. You have to at some point figure out that this is all going to go away. We’ve got this. We’ve got it handled. And that while this is all happening, we’re finding out a lot about ourselves and that you can see that there is a lot of greatness still inside a lot of people that they don’t realize and they have to believe and I think this says it the best way of all — that you don’t know who the next great player we’re gonna see is going to be, the next great play. We don’t know where we’re going, but wherever we’re going we can make it better if we just believe inside, because there’s a GOAT in all of us.”
As for the big game, Montana says he’ll be watching it at home. All of his kids are around where he lives and are part of his bubble, so they’ll be watching together.
As for his predictions for the game, he says “Yeah, somebody’s gonna win, somebody’s going to lose,” he says.
“It’s set up to be a great great game because both teams now you know Tampa went through it early, struggled a little bit here and there and then now they’re on a roll. Kansas City went through it a little bit. I think it was kind of midway through they struggled a little bit and now they got players back and they’re taking a different approach not going down there till Friday. I think is a great idea.”
He thinks that by keeping them at home little longer they can avoid some potential COVID mishaps with players trying to go out
“The COVID thing has been the biggest thing with teams losing players. I think it’s gonna be a good one. The sad part is is neither one of those guys care about being behind so doesn’t matter how far they are behind you just can never know? Obviously Tom’s having a tremendous career and it’s hard to pick against Tom, but I was a Chief, so I gotta go with the Chiefs, by 1 or 3.”