By 'eck, it's gorgeous up north

Some of the most memorable beer campaigns have come from northern brands. Pete Brown says the rest of the market should take note

What does it mean to be northern? Writer, broadcaster and Wigan native Stuart Maconie uses more than 300 pages of his brilliant new book, Pies and Prejudice, to explain.

To southerners, the north is a land of

traditional clichés, mostly disparaging: flat caps, whippets, stupid accents, coal in the bath and a space-time continuum wormhole eternally and umbilically linking large parts of the region to the 1930s.

Northerners - in their native land, as well as those of us living in exile down in "that London" - beg to differ. The north is a land of desolate beauty and stirring, elegant Victorian towns and cities. Its people are warm and witty, their natural response upon meeting you is friendly rather than suspicious.

The north is home to such legendary artists as the Brontës, the Beatles, David Hockney, Henry Moore, the Smiths... of course, I could go on (and on), but northerners don't.

As a rule, northerners hate to brag.

And as Maconie emphasises, the north is where people drink "proper" beer. When this writer was a teenager in Barnsley, the most commonly used insults for southerners were - to rephrase them a little more delicately - "lager-drinking softies" or, more damningly, "shandy drinkers". Now, of course, lager dominates British beer-drinking, but it was much slower to catch on from Derbyshire upwards, and the north still maintains a stronger ale-drinking tradition.

The north is, indeed, the land of real beer - not real ale necessarily, but "proper" beer.

"It's interesting that the ale market leaders - John Smith's and Tetley's - have a proud Yorkshire heritage," says Peter Kirby, Carlsberg marketing controller for premium lagers

and ales.

Boddington's is also a famously northern brand, as is bottled ale market leader Newcastle Brown. Worthington's, the other big seller, and icons such as Bass and Marston's Pedigree, are not northern - not to northerners anyway - but they're only 30 miles or so wide of the mark.

Northern territory

There are two main reasons for northern brands' domination of the ale market. Many northerners would say they simply make the best beer - you can tell by looking at its head. The argument over whether a head is an irrelevant collection of air where beer should be, or an integral part of the pint that enhances both presentation and enjoyment, is one that will always separate southern drinking lore from the combined wisdom of northerners and the world's finest brewing scientists.

Simon Theakston has developed a very persuasive line of argument that takes the "north is best" point of view a step beyond simple

regional pride.

"Historically, hops were more common in south-east England. Southern beers were hoppy, whereas Scottish beers were characteristically darker and more malty. The M62 corridor runs between the two, and beers from this part of the world are noted for their perfect balance of malt and hops."

But there's more to this than the product itself. Rather than just being about beer, branding is a key strength for the region's brewers.

Provenance is an important aspect of the vast majority of beer brands, as is tradition. But brands in the north have a very particular take on these qualities: they seem imbued with a sense of place and longevity, simply because of their northern heritage. It is common to hear references not just to "centuries of brewing" but to "centuries of brewing in the north". The north, it would seem, has brand values particularly relevant to beer.

"I think it's fair to say that, traditionally, northern beer brands have been amongst the highest-profile products in identifying their geographical heritage and using that as a selling point," says Lee Williams of Thwaites.

"John Smith's and Boddington's are prime examples - that's why we focused on it in our 'Northern Smoothie' campaign promoting Thwaites Smooth. The north has certain values that reassure people that this is a product worth drinking."

So what exactly are these much-lauded northern values? "The brand values of Tetley's are identical to how northerners see themselves - rugged, honest and straight-talking, yet humorous," says Peter Kirby.

That last word is key. Southerners may consider northerners dour, but while the deadpan face is ever present, behind that guise northern folk - and northern brands - are always on the look out for the next gag.

For 20 years and through several incarnations, the UK's biggest ale brand has demonstrated this quality, with brand positioning summed up simply as "no nonsense".

Early commercials on this theme, in an age dominated by slick, hip lager campaigns, would claim that those who knew beer simply needed to be shown a pint of John Smith's, but advertisers would kindly throw in snogging ladybirds or a picture of a mobile phone (then a novelty) to keep lager-drinking viewers happy.

From creative peaks such as the Jack Dee and Peter Kay campaigns, through to less memorable ads such as the cardboard man, the brand has remained consistent in its belief that the beer is so good it doesn't need any advertising nonsense to sell it. Its genius, of course, lies in the fact that the advertising entertains people with the very gimmicks it claims the brand doesn't need - demonstrating typical Yorkshire sardonicism.

Simon Theakston agrees with that sentiment, but expresses it more diplomatically. "Our customers aren't easily influenced by gimmicky campaigns. We know what quality is, and we have high expectations," he says. A key northern trait is paying attention to "doing things proper" - an intuitive streak accompanied by a crucial absence of pretentiousness. True quality speaks for itself - it doesn't need to be dressed up fancy and given a fanfare.

Unpretentious quality

This commitment to unpretentious quality is close to the heart of beer fans everywhere.

Beer is a social leveller, an everyday reward, and the most democratic and accessible of drinks. But beer fans are notoriously discerning about their pint's quality. When it comes to beer, drinkers across the country are adopting an attitude far more northern in spirit than any that would accompany their order for a skinny macchiato grande with cinnamon sprinkles. But while all this makes perfect sense to northerners, south-eastern drinkers would surely struggle to agree.

Does northern identity really travel? Theakston thinks it can: "Northern characteristics are very relevant and valuable to the ale market as a whole, appealing to ale drinkers across the country. Northernness is as much a state of mind as a geographical location, and Theakston's customers are proud of the quality of the beer wherever they are."

But the relevance of a northern attitude and northern values to the beer market is countered by a broader southern prejudice that insists on stereotyping the north as inferior, impoverished and lacking in style. Can the rest of the country truly aspire to being northern?

Throughout the 1980s, John Smiths solved the problem by running a campaign poking fun at its provenance, while acknowledging that some of its characteristics had relevance beyond its heartland. Arkwright campaign ads, featuring an old man in a flat cap who cared only for his beloved John Smith's, were funny, but they didn't run in Yorkshire. Heartland drinkers watched the Big John campaign, oblivious to the fact that their brand was gently sending them up further south.

Boddington's managed to pull off a more elegant solution in the early 1990s when new owners Whitbread faced a dual challenge: launching a new national brand on an ignorant public, while shoring up the brand's reputation in its Manchester heartland, where people were suspicious of its new owners.

Guy Murphy, then an advertising campaign strategist at leading agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, wrote: "Image truths about Boddingtons are essentially Mancunian: solid, straight-talking, irreverent, urban and contemporar