Now Taylor's aren't the kind to shout about themselves. Historically they haven't really done 'advertising'. They prefer to concentrate on brewing the best beer humanly possible and let that beer do the talking. But they thought in this age of ever-increasing competition in the beer category, it might be a good idea to help people understand a little more about what makes their beer so special, why it's worth paying that bit more for.
Taylor's prefer to be discovered and savoured, and we have taken the same approach with the advertising. It's a refreshing challenge to the usual narratives around advertising and brand comms to note that not every brand wants to create maximum hype or noise. Some would simply like to communicate things that matter to their customers and potential customers in a way they feel is true to themselves.
So every couple of weeks Taylor's charming ads appear in the same spot in newspapers and magazines, each telling in 100 words one of the little stories that add up to make a big difference to the quality and taste of their beer.
Sometimes it could be a more time-consuming but better way of doing something, or it could be about the use of a certain, more difficult to grow ingredient. Other times it could the emphasis on the human touch and the skill of the brewer. They're often simple things that on their own aren't earth-shattering, but together they make a big difference. They do them not because it's easy or cheap, but because they don't want to compromise on the quality or taste of the beer. Or, as we like to put it, they go to that trouble All For That Taste of Taylor's.
With the help of cartooning legends Ed McLachlan (Punch, Private Eye, Evening Standard, The Spectator, Daily Mirror etc.) and Rob Murray (Private Eye, Sunday Times, The Spectator etc.) each story is brought to life visually with a cartoon, so they catch the eye in the pages of your newspaper or magazine. It's a real pleasure to work with these brilliant artists from sketches through to their amazing final artworks, I think I'll write more at some point about the wonderful, often much underrated art of cartooning. The end results are adverts that are not designed to look showy or clever in the boardroom or to awards juries, but to be discovered, enjoyed and work well in context on the printed pages of papers and magazines. Bucking the current trend of in-your-face, shouty advertising, they credit the audience with intelligence and a sense of humour.
Even on a relatively modest scale, this campaign shows the long-term benefit of a big idea that builds over time. Along with all of the other great work being done in the business, this campaign and idea is helping Taylor's to increase their sales year-on-year and increase their share of the cask ale market in a climate despite the meteoric rise of craft beer. More to come later this year...
