‘Beautiful’ pub film wins over hearts and minds
- Jun 26
- 1 min read
The heart-warming ‘The Pub That Refused To Die’ campaign, entered by LePub Milan and Publicis Dublin on behalf of Heineken, has secured the Creative Strategy Grand Prix.
The campaign cleverly linked Heineken’s global Back The Bars platform with a very specific Irish problem — the systematic closure of rural pubs.
In Irish society rural pubs are often the heart of local communities — but increased costs shut their doors in the last 20 years.
In one case, in County Limerick, 26 locals came together to buy their stricken pub and
keep it alive. Heineken helped them, and then created a playbook for other endangered pubs.
It also made a film about the 26 who saved the first pub, which enriched the story with human insight and local resonance. Jury President, Sarah Lemarié, chief strategy officer, Publicis, France said the campaign was built around a “great cultural engagement strategy.
It got into Irish people’s hearts and every media outlet talked about it. The documentary was a beautiful piece that convinced people in their brains and hearts.”
Lemarié said the jury wanted to “inspire young talent to get into strategy by awarding a body of work that showed the full scope of strategy — craft, insight, the smart reframing of a problem or a category, and campaigns that punched above their weight.”
Four Gold Lions were awarded to Sweden (2), Italy and the UK/Spain. The Italian entry was another win for Heineken — ‘Tocayos’, entered by LePub Milan.
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