The challenge was simple. To reverse the increase in beer duty, which was set to rise by 3.4% in the autumn budget and then every year for the foreseeable future. A rise that posed a serious threat to Britain’s Beer Alliance (BBA) and the prosperity of its 120 members, including founding global brewers AB InBev, Carlsberg, Heineken and Molson Coors. 

To convince Philip Hammond that any rise in beer duty would be an incredibly unpopular choice, we had to create national groundswell. A campaign that would engage the heart, the head and the hand. Or in other words, a campaign that made people feel, provided the ammunition to justify the cause, and made it easy for them to act. And so, we delved deeper to uncover the real story. The story about pubs and small business. These were the ones feeling the squeeze from beer duty. The planned rise we calculated would cost these pubs an additional £125m per year. Each would pay approximately £44k before they even opened their doors. This was without doubt the biggest challenge they faced right now, as it threatened their very survival. 

We uncovered reports to reveal the cultural significance of the pub and the role they play in the local community. It became starkly apparent that this was the sweet spot to elevate the issue to a level of national importance. Pubs have deservedly earned a reputation as a British institution, both in what they offer us as pub goers and what they do for Britain as a whole. We landed on our strategic proposition: It’s Bigger Than Beer. A proposition that rang true because beer is more than just a commodity. Because pubs are more than just drinking establishments. They are a way of life. An intrinsic part of our national identity, playing an intrinsic role in modern British life. 

From this was born the campaign idea: Long Live The Local - the start of a three-year, multi-million-pound campaign to save ‘the local’ - stopping closures and prevent the planned rise in beer tax, simply by putting pressure on the Chancellor himself.

Long Live the Local is an idea that celebrates the life and vitality, and the role that the local pub plays. One that doubles up as a call-to-action and a celebratory toast to everything the pub represents. It is a grassrooted and top down approach to campaigning. It engages the heart to drive action and affect positive change. Giving small businesses a platform to celebrate their contribution to communities, culture and society-at-large. Stopping closures and preventing the planned rise.

The campaign was purposefully designed to drive traffic to the website www.longlivethelocal.pub, where consumers can sign the petition to reject the planned increases in beer duty and send a letter to their local MP at a click of a button.

Realisation 1: We knew we had to harness the power of the people

We knew traditional lobbying would be ineffective and conventional advertising would never cut through to Parliament. The only way to influence the decision-makers at the top would be to create national groundswell from the bottom up. We shifted our target audience from politicians to the general public.

The architecture of a protest movement: Adapting Klandermans’ theory of action-mobilisation, we created our own architecture of a modern movement:

HEART - Connect on an emotional level. Make it personal.

HEAD - Give people the ammunition to justify the cause.

HAND - Make it easy for people to act.

Realisation 2: People don’t care about the industry, but they do care about pubs

We explored the cost to consumers – research told us that people aren’t motivated by a few pence off a pint, especially when the beneficiary is the NHS. We explored the cost to the industry, but it was clear than people didn’t really care - previous industry-body campaigns delivered just 15,000 responses. But what people did care about, was pubs. The little guys feeling the squeeze. But pubs are more than places, they are the heart of local communities across the nation.

Realisation 3: Something much greater was at risk – National identity

Extensive research into the role and cultural importance of the pub revealed something much greater was at stake:

-The pub is at the heart of our national identity

-A community hub, the heart and soul of local communities

-A connector: where people meet, life happens and people make new connections

Our idea

We built a simple rallying cry to sit at the heart of our movement: 

Long live the local: Building on the semiotics of protest movements, we built a strong visual identity for the campaign. It combined iconography of urgency and action with a rich celebration of the life, vitality and cultural community of pubs.

Bringing the idea to life: We planned a three-pronged approach. Each stage delivered our ‘Heart. Head. Hand’ strategy with maximum impact via a simple narrative structure: evoke emotion, raise jeopardy, drive action.

All assets pointed to our website – www.longlivethelocal.pub – the destination to consolidate supporters into a single, powerful movement. A three-click process enabled visitors to sign the petition and auto-generate an email to their local MP.

Activating the idea

Phase 1: We created a ‘national roadblock’ to propel the campaign into the public consciousness. A Twitter-trend promoted our film. A striking OOH campaign dominated the country, accompanied by heavyweight PR activity and hard-working press ads. Social media and YouTube meant we could target a mass audience, with a core focus on beer-drinkers and pub-goers, to build an emotional connection and drive action.

Phase 2: We turned to social to maximise signatures. We targeted bite-sized content that would appeal to different audiences, young and old, urban and rural, Leave or Remain. The pub became our national network to activate the campaign. We sent out 19,000 activation kits, including posters, coasters and pint glasses to drive response at the most relevant time and place.All assets pointed to our website - www.longlivethelocal.pub – the destination to consolidate supporters into a single, powerful movement. A three-click process enabled visitors to sign the petition and autogenerate an email to their local MP. 

Phase 3: Once Parliament reconvened after recess, in the build-up to the party conferences, we ran a bold OOH takeover in Westminster station. Almost every MP would pass through the station twice-a day confronted with our message - LONG LIVE THE LOCAL.

Partnerships with MessageSpace and Politico delivered further visibility amongst MPs. Tactical OOH placements ensured our presence was felt at both Labour and Conservative conferences.

We even made a beer called the ‘Philsner’ in honour of Philip Hammond and delivered it to the desks of every MP in Parliament.

Results

On the day of the budget, Hammond announced he was freezing beer duty. With this decision, our campaign saved the industry £110million, delivering an impressive ROI of £39 for every £1 invested, and preventing 4,000 industry job-losses.

We created a national groundswell:

-Reached 25.9 million, (50% of UK adults), generating 24 million views of our film online and a 47% completed view-through-rate

-Social media delivered 12 million views and 103,000 conversions (63% of total signatures)

Secured 588 pieces of coverage in a broad spectrum of media, including every national newspaper

The activity drove action:

-119,776 people signed the online petition

-49,462 people sent an email to their MP

And we engaged politicians:

-70 MPs attended the Parliamentary drop-in event (+84% from 2017)

-155 MPs actively supported our campaign on social media and in Parliament