When we first learned that Droga5 would be turning to the former Captain Picard as a spokesperson for (mildly) alcoholic cider brand Strongbow, we knew they would do things a little…differently.
The press release last October, for example, described the client’s debut ad as its “first and bestest TV spot.” Creative Directors John McKelvey and Hannes Ciatti even went so far as to say, respectively, “We went better than best,” and “That’s the bestest.”
Here’s the ad in question:
As with Droga’s Newcastle campaigns, the clear goal here was to play on the many, many cliches populating your average alcohol ad.
The next spot in the series, released this March, mocked two other mainstays of alcohol marketing: the meaningless award and the irrelevant celebrity spokesperson.
Our main takeaway was that Sir Patrick Stewart almost certainly does NOT drink hard apple cider (though he did claim to have waited until the age of 72 to enjoy his first-ever slice of pizza).
In Strongbow’s latest ad, released yesterday, the brand seems to have realized that–unlike the Starship Enterprise–it never really needed Captain Picard anyway. It didn’t even need Commander Riker:
Quick and to the point.
Since the newest ad in the campaign doesn’t have a press release, we’re not sure whether Picard has truly been given the old heave-ho or whether he will return for future Strongbow ads.
Even if he really did get fired, we know that he will find many productive things to do in his adopted neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Working to ban strollers, however, is not one of those things.