The £6.6m marketing campaign has been built around the concept of friendship and how people’s friends make them who they are, showcasing every day, relatable stories of “mateship” with activations across TV, social media, and video-on-demand channels, tied together with the strapline ‘We’re Made by Our Mates’.
Carling brand director Lee Willett said: “We all know having mates, proper mates, is a powerful thing.
Relatable moments
“With this campaign we wanted to champion the relationships that make us who we are and bring those relatable moments with mates to life through a series of affectionate, authentic, and character-driven ads.”
Continuing Carling’s ‘Made Local’ campaign, which highlighted people who make a difference in their hometown and Carling’s integral relationship with the brewing town of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, the latest series in the campaign welcomes mates back together after the impact of the covid pandemic.
Willett added: “While the original ‘Made Local’ campaign shone a light on the neighbourhoods, communities and initiatives that make our society what it is, this new execution celebrates those simple moments of friendship that mean the world and deserve to be cherished.”
Staying true
‘Made by Our Mates’ follows Carling’s recent collaboration with mental health charity the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) for the ‘More than a game’ campaign, which saw Carling team up with CALM and ex-footballers Darren Bent and Marvin Sordell to champion the power of grassroots football to bring people together, on and off the pitch.
The campaign has been scheduled to launch from the beginning of September, with ads airing on TV, including Sky Pubs, alongside sport and other high-reach programming throughout the rest of 2022, and a second phase of football-related ads launching on ITV in November.
Willett said: “Staying true to our Carling roots in football, our first ad kicks off with a group of friends watching a game together, with a bit of Carling humour thrown in.”
