‘Nothing’s More Perfect Than Friendship’: Why Amstel Defied the Rules of Curation

Gezelligheid is the Dutch word for the type of conviviality you share with your good friends in a socially relaxed and funny situation, and Amstel’s latest campaign is awash with it. 

Aside from being the emblem of the Netherlands’ oldest brewery, the brand’s red and white billiard ball honours the friendship of co-founders Charles de Pesters and Johannes van Marwijk Koolj who, outside of their beer-making endeavours, regularly played the famous pub sport together. 

Since 1870, fashion and the common settings of friendship might have shifted, but nevertheless the brand has shown that it is keen to keep connection at its core  while bravely venturing into new territory to deliver a fashionably unfiltered campaign. Befitting of a heritage beer brand, its latest work ‘Shot Without Permission’, is a far cry from the celebrity and status sometimes associated with alcohol brands. 

“The brief was simply to find a way to celebrate friendship as it actually feels, because normally we see what friendship is, but we don’t celebrate why,” explains Heineken marketer Vanessa Brandão.

The simple concept ditches all posturing and instead captures unfiltered,  uncurated shared moments between friends. Shot unsuspectingly by photographer Javier Tles, they all look delightfully, humanly, natural.

“Nowadays we live in a culture where so much is curated or we’re performing all the time or curating ourselves to look good,” Vanessa explains, “we wanted to celebrate friendship as it actually feels – in those unguarded moments where a bit of imperfection is actually the perfection that actually makes it real and special”. 

In another nod to a part of the brand’s logo – the gold circle around the rim, Vanessa notes that one key aim of the campaign was to put a spotlight on people’s close-knit “golden circles” of friends. “The people that are most precious to you are inside that golden circle. Part of our visual identity is the idea that everything that matters is inside that.”

Unfiltered snaps in a curated world

Circumventing the usual approach to campaign photography was one of the main challenges of the creative brief. Created with WPP-owned boutique agency INGO, which sits under the Ogilvy Group umbrella, the work involved the team approaching those present around the chosen venues in order to inform them about the unfiltered approach and the potential use of the images, and obtain their consent. 

Individuals who saw themselves in the final campaign were able to bag themselves a year’s supply of Amstel. 

“You can’t get a bunch of people together and make them pretend to be friends – real friendship can’t be faked.It’s impossible to recreate that kind of naturalness on a set,” says chief creative officer Daniel Fisher. 

He explains that whilst the creative director instinct “normally gravitates towards perfection”, for this approach to accurately work they had to do exactly the opposite. 

“We needed the slight blur, the half-hidden face, the imperfections that make the moment feel caught rather than constructed,” Daniel adds. 

Much of the magic was created via the work of photographer Javier Tles. According to Vanessa, his success is down to his combination of technical prowess, his ability to make an image look simultaneously cohesive and unfiltered, and his ability to hide. 

“People were so in the moment and so connected that they didn’t care what was happening around them; they were just focused on their friends,” she explains. 

This documentary-style approach led to multiple unfiltered moments, such as two women spontaneously hugging and singing together as live music played, and many a laugh, with ample choice when it came to the final selection.

Why Friendship Translates Globally

For Lucy Tone McGurk, who has a Romanian background, a key indicator of the campaign’s success came when multiple friends and family messaged her because they had seen it.

“You know you’re doing something good when friends and family who aren’t in the industry start sharing it with you,” she emphasises.

Likewise for Vanessa a key metric of success for the campaign was about growing the type of awareness that can be converted into success in new markets, such as Argentina and Romania.

“These types of actions are not necessarily immediately sales-driven, the main output is brand-building,” she explains. “When you see articles in Italian or Chinese, even though we didn’t run the campaign in those markets, it tells us the idea is relevant.”

Beyond reach, what the campaign certainly delivers in spades is something consumers the world over are pining for – an escape from having to appear composed.

As Lucy puts it: “There’s a bravery in waiting for the moment you can’t script, but that’s exactly where the magic is, and people everywhere can feel that.”