Castle Milk Stout arguably the most South African beer, launched their new cans that celebrated African culture by displaying the various clan names used in South African cultures, a country that boast over 11 languages. Castle Milk Stout launched a branded advert to start conversation around contemporary South African culture. The advert posed the question whether modern day South African youths had lost their tradition and culture, the emotive and controversial advert launched a debate among many South Africans and had a more negative effect than intended, especially with the millenials who were the main target audience of the campaign.
Our main goal was to reach millenials and steer the campaign from negative chatter by showing Castle Milk Stout to not seem like the undermining 'Elder Uncle' who laments at the youth for their lack of culture, ultimately changing the narrative. Another goal was to create short, engaging evergreen content that would resonate with the digital community, content that is bold and exciting enough to be highly shared. It was important to the strategy that the video content be native to Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The overall feedback from the community was that the brand poured loads of money into a brand ad that doesn't truly reflect the youth nor was it engaging. Our strategy was to create a visual treatment that would engage with young people who are on Instagram and create shareable content. Content that showcased millenials who were in touch with their culture and knew how to recite their clan names. We used a candid documentary style to create an authentic response, combined with the use of stories, ephemeral content and using influencers who came from different tribes and held different notions about African identity. From a young Zulu woman 'Nomalanga Shozi' who represents the natural African woman, artist duo Blaq Diamond who produce House, Hip Hop and trap and are also the youngest South African Music Award for their traditional folk music 'Maskandi', to Joe Kazinga; a Congolese born actor who speaks over 3 African languages and acts in traditional South African shows, to Didi Monsta who is a well know urban celebrity fashion designer in the urban scene. We shot them in 360 with their traditional African attire and their modern day entire to juxtapose the visuals of their African history and their modern day self, ergo the future. The music was scored by Blaq Diamond, who created an original song taking the campaign hash tag and translating it into a modern day Maskandi song that reflected the youth's perceptions on culture. The video created a sense of pride which inspired South Africans to comment and recite their clan names on the content, showing that the youth never needed to #GetItBack, they never lost it.
The results were favorable with the videos producing over 1 million views across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and over 5k re-shares. Cementing Castle Milk Stout as a brand that understood the young urban market and their views on South African culture. We aided in the overall campaign and steered the online conversation from people talking about the validity of the brand commenting on South African culture, to people participating and engaging with their heritage, and reciting their clan names.' The video resulted in a plethora of people not only reciting their clan names but querying and questioning their own Clan names existence , which lended itself to driving people to Clanopedia, which allowed users to type in their surname and receive their clan names.
