Guinness Refuses to Sign Creators En Masse — and Its Reasoning Holds Up

Guinness has no plans to sign creators en masse the way rival brands do, and its global marketing manager Paddy Carberry says chasing trends would be self-defeating. "The minute we start getting involved in trends and social media stuff, all of a sudden we become the dad dancing at the disco," Carberry said during a live recording of the Unofficial Partner sports business podcast, in partnership with agency Sid Lee.

The comment came with a concrete frame: "While we lean into creators in appropriate ways we probably do less than you'd expect," Carberry said. The Diageo-owned beer brand, which takes nearly two minutes to pour a pint, is deliberately building its creator presence organically rather than through payroll deals.

What does this change for practitioners?

For influencer marketers, Guinness is a working case for restraint — amplifying what consumers already do rather than commissioning content. Its "Singing Pints" campaign, launched in 2023 and revived over the summer, came from the viral #SingingGuinness TikTok trend, where pubgoers pressed faces into pint foam and blew across it to make the foam "mouths" move. "We took what was the consumer playing with the brand and amplified it into a TV spot," said Carberry, calling it "one of most successful pieces of content for the last 10 years."

The brand's social team has operated this way since 2014, amplifying rituals drinkers invented themselves — like "Splitting the G" (drinking the top half of a pint so the foam resembles the Guinness "G"), which earned an Urban Dictionary entry in 2018 — and layering on curated influencer partnerships only where it made sense. Carberry's stated skill: knowing which moments to touch and which to leave alone.

Earning cool without a creator budget

Much of Guinness' current standing traces to the pandemic, per Carberry. With pubs shut and suppliers chasing unpaid bills, the brand "extended our credit to all of our customers" and sent unsold beer off to fertilize Christmas trees. Landlords and bar staff noticed, and in Carberry's view nobody sways what gets ordered more than the person pulling the pint.

Unpaid creators did heavy lifting during the revival. London's pint-rating accounts turned judging pours into a spectator sport, and Kim Kardashian and Olivia Rodrigo promoted the brand with no Diageo brief.

Jon Williams, founder and chief creative officer at Freedom Works, argues Guinness has effectively created creators anyway. "Guinness might not consciously be signing people up as creators, but 'splitting the G' has turned plenty of ordinary drinkers into exactly that," Williams said. "They're creating something to show their mates, in a pub, around a brand. That should be an ambition for any marketer."

The regulatory ceiling on TikTok

Alcohol marketing rules also constrain the go-slow approach. In the U.K., anyone shown drinking in an alcohol ad must be — and look — over 25, and brands can't advertise where more than a quarter of the audience is under 18, a hard promise to make on TikTok. The Advertising Standards Authority banned Au Vodka ads last year on exactly those grounds. Carberry (misnamed "Cranberry" in one passage of the briefing) noted advertising regulations are "stricter and stricter around the world."

The model points back to influencer marketing's origins — community management and locals whose word carries weight on their own patch — rather than the reach game the industry spent a decade building.

Elsewhere in marketing this week

• The Trade Desk: CEO Jeff Green called quarterly results "above what we expected" but said growth is "well below the level of growth that we expect from ourselves… we are not satisfied." Revenue declined $3.4 million in Q3.
• Nexxen: Reported $34.1 million in total CTV revenue in Q3.
• TikTok: Viewers watch an average of 34% of a brand's video on the app. The EU says the For You feed violates digital rules by pulling users into harmful "rabbit holes," with fines up to 6% of revenue possible.
• OpenAI: Brands can now publish a free "business agent" in ChatGPT, the organic twin of the sponsored agent sold as an ad since September.
• LinkedIn: B2B CTV ad targeting — by job role and seniority — is expanding to the U.K., though agencies doubt the premium pricing.
• Reddit: Offering Q4 ad credits, but measurement doubts make year-round budgets hard to win.
• Trust gap: Only about a quarter of U.S. adults trust creators to always disclose brand deals, per a Morning Consult survey of roughly 2,000 Americans.
• Mattel: Debuted a TikTok Shop store this week with about 20 products across Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Monster High.

Guinness' bet is that a smaller, disciplined creator footprint — regulation and brand equity both pushing the same direction — will keep winning without a bloated influencer budget.