Greatness In A Bottle?

There's something sweet about the we-can-do-it spirit of this Guinness beer campaign running in Africa, celebrating the "greatness" of the common man. "We wanted something that appealed to African men's sense of pride, heritage and passion," says Julie Gardiner, an art buyer for Saatchi & Saatchi in South Africa. Hence the coat-of-arms design of these ads, which are running as print, in-store, and point-of-sale executions. Photographer Naoto Ikeda shot the models in the ads?who came from both talent agencies and street casting?at different times over a two-day shoot. He combined the shots digitally, which was a time-consuming process but one typical of Ikeda's production-heavy work.



Client: Guinness

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Cape Town, South Africa

Creative director: Leon Jacobs

Head of art and design: Anton Crone

Art director: Gavin Wood

Copywriter: Sammy-Jane Thom

Print production: Yusuf Basadien

Art buyer: Julie Gardiner

Photographer: Naoto Ikeda