Brooklyn Brewery: Strategy, Media and Creative Collaboration

Problem: Brooklyn Brewery has teamed up with the Stonewall Inn to launch an initiative called CREATE SPACE, as a way of giving back to the LGBTQ+ community. As part of this, a special IPA was released called The Stonewall Inn IPA (Pour Proudly). For Pride Month, we wanted to make a further statement, a declaration of Brooklyn Brewery’s commitment to making sure all voices are heard.

Our Strategic Insight: If you truly believe in something, show the world that you are prepared for your commitment to cost you something.

Creative Solution: The decision was made by Brooklyn Brewery to declare that if you are not an advocate, then please don’t drink Brooklyn Brewery beer, and to be explicit and uncompromising with the messaging, even if it ends up hurting sales. Simple and brave.

Media Solution: The decision was made to deliberately target states where LGBTQ+ rights are being threatened. Why? Because if we were prepared to have the campaign cost something in order to show commitment and allyship, then targeting more liberal states made no sense - this was a safe option, there was no bravery. So Brooklyn Brewery and Bray & Co instead targeted states where rights were (and are) under attack, and to specifically reach members of the LGBTQ+ community so they knew that Brooklyn Brewery stands side by side with them. Across Instagram, Facebook and Programmatic media we targeted the people in the areas that needed an allied voice the most.

Results: We have never had a response to a campaign as meaningful as what we witnessed with this launch. The comments and messages we received, unsolicited, were incredibly impactful. We had shown exactly what Brooklyn Brewery stands for. Below in The Work we have also included screengrabs of people’s comments.