Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants

I can’t claim to have had any involvement with these two gorgeous new brews from Guinness, but I still got a huge flush of pride when I saw them advertised in London in the run-up to Christmas. It’s often said that innovation has many parents, and even though it’s nearly 10 years since I worked closely with the Guinness innovation team in St James’ Gate, it’s still easy to see the legacy of some  of the work we did then coming through today.

The challenge with Guinness innovation is a perennial one … it’s an incredibly powerful, well-loved brand with a heritage and equity to die for – an icon of the brewing world that has nevertheless presented something of a conundrum for Diageo: how can it be so difficult to innovate off such a strong brand? After all, many other beer brands with inferior credentials seem to do it effortlessly, so what’s holding Guinness back? Over the years there has been significant investment in attempting to create innovation that sticks (Guinness Light in the 80’s and Breo in the 90’s) but these have all failed and been pulled from the market quicker than you can say “Time for a Guinness”. The only successful innovation on Guinness had been format and delivery – all serving to reinforce the power of the icon.

Our breakthrough ten years ago was to realise that before Guinness could make any big leaps into the lucrative world of volume beer, the brand needed to demonstrate to drinkers (especially the most committed drinkers in Ireland who felt they owned the brand) that it was both able to create innovation that drinkers wanted and that it was committed to that innovation … that it wasn’t just going to back down and pull new launches of the shelves. We realised this would mean taking baby-steps and starting out with products that were tied as closely back to the icon of Guinness Draught as possible … products that looked like Guinness, tasted very much like Guinness, but that allowed us to gradually break the perception that only Draught Guinness was the real thing.

The Brewhouse Series was launched in October 2005 as a series of limited availability brews, each one a variant of the classic Draught Guinness recipe, “inspired by the stout and porter recipes that were around in Arthur Guinness’s time” … I think a story even circulated at the time that Arthur’s ancient recipe book that had been discovered and may have provided the basis for these brews.

If you read the Guinness Wikipedia entry it will tell you that after three of these limited availability brews – Brew 39, Toucan Brew and North Star – the series was quietly cancelled. What the page doesn’t mention was that at the same time trials for Guinness Mid Strength were also taking place, initially in Limerick. We knew there was an emerging consumer need for the product – all the data was pointing towards guys wanting to be able to still be able to socialise, but in a slightly more responsible way than previously … as long as we could deliver a product that to all intents and purposes looked liked Guinness, tasted like Guinness and was made like Guinness … and just happened to be lower in alcohol. It also had to reassure that it was still a man’s drink, hence the name … it’s not Guinness ‘Light’, or Guinness ‘Minus’ in any way … it’s Guinness Mid Strength and it’s been on the market for about 10 years, gradually building a base in Ireland and now available in the UK in the off-trade. It might not deliver lager volumes, but it’s still growing with barely any support … a ten-year overnight success!

So, what does all this have to do with the new brews from Guinness – the London Porter and the West Indies brew? To my mind, these are a brilliant re-staging of the concept behind the Brewhouse Series, updated brews “inspired by authentic recipes from Guinness brewers’ historic diaries from 1796 and 1801″, but leveraging the growth of the craft beer market at the same time as reminding drinkers that Guinness is a talented brewer, not just a producer of a single product.

I think there are three lessons to draw from this story: firstly that innovation doesn’t necessarily have to be about driving volume – a perfectly credible role for strategic innovation can be to change beliefs and attitudes in order to open up other future mass market opportunities for the brand (concept cars play this role in the motor trade); secondly, that very clearly defined monolithic product brands can be very difficult to innovate from with any speed; and finally that good work is never wasted and a brand’s archives (from the recent as well as the distant past) are always worth delving into for fresh inspiration.