If you like beer and awkward, creepy-eyed humor, you’ll probably enjoy this campaign from a U.K. craft brew club.
Edinburgh-based Beer52.com ships different kinds of craft beer to members each month. To celebrate a collaboration with popular Escondido, California, brewer Stone Brewing, the website and agency Grey London created a 40-minute ad (below) featuring a new spokesmen, “Beer Buddy.”
For those viewers with less than 40 extra minutes on their hands, a one-minute trailer captures the spirit of the character, who is weird and lonely and a little bit of an asshole, but likes to drink beer in his rich uncle’s gaudy den, all of which makes him an ideal candidate to be your new best friend.
To put it differently, Beer Buddy—played by comedian Lee McQueen—looks and acts like the thirsty lovechild of Russell Brand and Zach Galifianakis. There’s even a fern in the background of the shot … but just one.
There are cameos from costars like his housemate (an exchange student who is the apparently even more creepy uncle’s housekeeper and lover), the old lady next door, and a kebab delivery guy. In other words, the more of the full-length version you watch, the more uncomfortable silences you’ll enjoy while you sip your Stone brews alongside him.
It’s Beer52’s first ever commercial, and a pretty strong opener.
“We read that ad agencies are making commercials that are maybe five seconds long, on account of how short people’s attention spans have become,” says co-founder Fraser Doherty. “That told us everything we needed to know. We were going to go the other way and shoot what is probably the world’s longest beer ad ever.”
Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—for Doherty, that dubious title still probably goes to Canadian brewer Kokanee’s feature-length bro comedy about a rager in the wilderness, The Movie Out Here, as created by agency Grip Ltd.
But maybe Beer Buddy can land a role in the (as yet unannounced) sequel, tentatively titled The Hangover 17.
CREDITS
Starring: Lee McQueen as Beer Buddy
Emily Wyatt as Vilma
Emma Barker as Doris
Nick Vickery as Kebab guy
Director: J Marlow
DOP: Bjorn Bratberg
Camera Assitant: Austin Philips
Written by: J Marlow, Henrik Ridderheim, Lee McQueen
Producer/1st AD: Elliot Tagg
Production Assistant: Shea Colman
Production Assistant: Harry Davidage
Post Producer: Callum Johnston
Editor: Matt Newman
Art Dept: Charlie Whiteway
Costume: Poppy Bell
Make up: Ruth Pease
Gaffer: Darren Jackson
Sound: Hugh Griffith
Production Company: stinkstudios
