2:18PM October 27 2011
It’s easier when you love it.
So, we recently won a corporate website project for Hall & Woodhouse, the people behind Badger Ales and around 250 brilliant pubs all around the south. Now, I’ve been a massive Badger fan for ages, each ale has its own unique personality and distinctive taste. Combine this with the fact that the Jolly Sailor pub in Bursledon (one of H&W’s pubs) has been my favourite for around 10 years and you have someone who’s up to his neck in love and goodwill for the brand.
As creatives, our job is to find something we love in every brand we work with. Sometimes it’s easy, like Hall & Woodhouse, sometimes it’s hard. But the key to genuinely compelling, authentic work is being able to take the most exciting thing about that brand and dramatise it. People are incredibly insightful, they can recognise when there’s love in something, and they recognise its absence. They can also tell when a brand’s pretending to be something it’s not, regardless of how clever or big your campaign is. All the books, the strategies, the tutorials, the gurus and the thinking around how to create big brands can be boiled down to a very simple thing:
Nobody’s as good at being you as you are. So be that, with power and skill.
OK, it’s all gone a bit new-agey-self-helpy, but you know what I mean, and this post’s drying up a bit, so I’ll use the rest of my words to review my favourite Badger Ales. I’m not a connoisseur, so don’t expect nosing or bouquets.
This is a deep, dark, quite rich ale. I discovered this over the summer but really feel that it lives in the winter, by the fire, setting the world to rights with your best mate in the whole world. It’s a big, slightly fruity taste, so drink it with massive slabs of meat and carbohydrates, no broccoli.
If Poacher’s Choice is everything that’s warm, snugly and sparkly about winter, Blandford Flyer is summer. It’s quite sweet with more than a hint of ginger, but so drinkable that it’s probably a good idea that you’re not operating the Barbie when you crack your first one open. It’s fizzy, refreshing, light and brilliant. I’ve burnt many a burger while being distracted by the Flyer.
First time you taste it you think ‘that’s a bit weird’, it tastes like peaches. Second mouthful you think ‘Not sure if it’s weird in a good or a bad way’. Third mouthful it’s ‘Cancel whatever I’m doing, I’m drinking this, all day, and then maybe having a bag of chips.’ It’s an acquired taste, but you acquire it fast. Like Blandford Flyer, this feels really summery.
