GO Communications, Malaysia’s leading storytelling agency, was recently provided the mandate by Arthur’s Storehouse and HEINEKEN Malaysia to launch the second official Guinness outlet in Malaysia at Pavilion Bukit Jalil. The agency was entrusted to manage the entire scope of media, PR, and influencer strategy in conjunction with the launch.
More than just an eatery, Arthur’s Storehouse resembles a window into the Guinness brand with its History Wall encompassing details from its inception in 1759 and the Guinness Academy where patrons can learn to master the art of the perfect pour as well as live performances to foster the brand ethos of magic and music.
Entrusted with creating a launch for one of the worlds’ oldest F&B brands founded by Arthur Guinness in Dublin, Ireland way back in the mid 18th century, the GO team sought out to create a campaign to match the acclaim of the iconic beverage.
It didn’t take long to realise that besides Guinness, another one of Dublin’s most famous exports to the world was none other than Irish rock-band, U2 (recently making news by launching “The Sphere” in Las Vegas), and decided to fuse the two together to make for a launch campaign as true as possible to its Irish roots.
Marrying ‘Music’ and ‘Magic’ as the core ethos of the establishment, GO Communications, in its signature atypical out-of-the-box fashion, sought out and engaged Pavel Sfera, the most renowned U2 tribute artist and spitting image of frontman Bono himself, to not only launch Arthur’s Storehouse in Pavilion Bukit Jalil, but to create buzz and hype leading up to the launch, by playing a sense of theatre with the public.
The campaign kicked off with meticulously selected lifestyle and F&B influencers posting snippets of Pavel arriving at KLIA and walking around the city centre posing a question to their followers “Is Bono in town?”. The agency took Pavel to the streets of the city center to interact with Malaysians and play along with the charade resulting in a social storm of images and videos of the tribute artist circulating the web.
The intrigue and mystery that ensued on social media then dovetailed perfectly into a media blitz of articles reporting on “Bono’s” arrival in Kuala Lumpur, further questioning if it was really the “With or Without You” singer and what exactly he was doing on this side of the globe.
The pinnacle of the campaign was the reveal at the launch event where Pavel performed a medley of U2’s greatest hits, magically recreating U2 through an unforgettable performance bringing Irish fallout to proceedings. The entertainment aspect of the campaign was courtesy of a partnership between the agency and GIMM Events Global that specialise in realising Hollywood-esque live performances for brands.
Peter de Kretser, CEO of GO Communications, was delighted with the result of the launch, stating, “It’s always liberating to work with brands that believe in out-of-the-box ideas and work collaboratively to make it a success.
It is launches like these that truly showcase the power of storytelling in an appropriately fun manner and how it can further foster interest and awareness, we look forward to continually working with Arthur’s Storehouse and HEINEKEN Malaysia in the future.”
The launch of Arthur’s Storehouse at Pavilion Bukit Jalil last Thursday was graced by Chargé d’affaires a.i., Embassy of Ireland to Malaysia, Frank Bradley, who noted his delight in seeing Irish culture being represented in an engaging manner, further forging ties between the two cultures and people through one of the country’s biggest exports.
The launch of Guinness’ second official outlet doubled up as the one-year anniversary of their flagship outlet as well as a nod to the brand’s presence in Malaysia spanning 130 years and being brewed locally for 58 years.
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