The world’s first positive beer recall – Camden Town Brewery don’t want you to drink pasteurised beer

Camden’s first national TV campaign looks to grow awareness and trial of its fresh, never pasteurised beers

Camden Town Brewery has today launched its first national TV campaign positioned as the world’s first positive beer recall. The new campaign demonstrates the brand’s ambitions to continue to grow awareness and trial of its range, supporting the national distribution of its fresh, never pasteurised beers.

Running over four weeks this summer, the beer recall advert looks to educate beer lovers that pasteurising beer is the biggest mistake Camden could ever make. The pasteurisation process involves heating beer up, changing its taste, which – unlike some other breweries – Camden would never dream of doing. That’s why their beers taste as fresh as Hells.

The animated TV ad will depict a press conference held by an illustrated Camden employee voiced by Lolly Adefope, announcing Camden’s voluntary recall of a small batch of Camden Hells Lager cans that have accidentally been pasteurised and distributed across the UK. Bringing the brand’s love of design and illustration to life, the stylized animation will hero Camden’s never pasteurised Hells Lager and prove that they take brewing beer so seriously, they’ll go to the ends of the earth to make sure Camden beers are always fresh tasting.

With 50 cans of the inferior Hells Lager seeded out for beer drinkers to find, Camden drinkers will know if they have encountered one of the handful of pasteurised cans, which are covered in warning stickers and specially created by a special effects company to look just as terrible as they taste.

Any ‘unlucky’ drinkers who come across one of these not-fresh pasteurised cans will need to call the specially created ‘ALWAYS-FRESH-BUT-NOT-THIS-TIME’ Camden Hells Lager hotline number to claim their reward and be compensated with a year’s supply of fresh, never pasteurised Hells Lager. The year’s supply will include a case of Hells (24x cans) to share with friends, delivered straight to their door every month for 12 months, as part of Camden’s apology for doing the one thing they promised they’d never do – ruin fresh tasting beer.

The campaign has been created by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, working with director, James Papper and illustrator Vivienne Shao. True to Camden’s distinctive design style, the advert takes place in a fictional illustrated beer world that highlights the shocking reality of what pasteurisation does to great tasting beer.

Zoe Wulfsohn-Dunkley, Head of Brand Marketing at Camden Town Brewery, said: “At Camden, we’re super passionate about always serving up the freshest beer possible, but we want to make sure our Camden fans know it too. The launch of our beer ‘recall’ campaign looks to highlight how important it is to us that all of our beers are never pasteurised, for a fresher taste.  

The aim of the campaign and ad is to continue to grow national awareness and trial of our flagship Hells Lager and support UK distribution of our delicious fresh beers. The cans of the inferior Hells will be seeded across the nation and we’ll be rewarding beer drinkers who find them with a year’s supply of never pasteurised Hells Lager..”

Camden’s new TV ad first aired on Thursday 20^th May during the Channel 4 news at 7pm.