Lazy Advert Goes Viral

“How do we promote this in an interesting and captivating way?” The age-old question of how to advertise, something that continues to keep a lot of people (including myself) up at night as well as in a job. And, there are countless answers; every brand has a different way of doing it: humour, shock factor, heartstrings, oddities, the list genuinely goes on for evermore.

Brands have succeeded , brands have catastrophically failed, you never really know how it’s going to pan out until it hits the public eye and that’s part of the fun. So, when a pub in Shropshire gave it go to publicise their music nights, who knew what was in store. Not renowned for beautiful advertising, pub ads often take the form of a shoddy PowerPoint or an unimpressive WordArt, so one presumes hopes weren’t monumentally high…   

Out of the blue, the Friars pub have totally and utterly nailed it, in an unexpected manner. No hefty design costs, no beautiful aesthetic, no clever tagline, just a simple iPhone screenshot. When the owner of the pub asked his friend Dave Blackhurst to design a poster publicising their music nights, little did he know that the resulting creative would spread like wildfire on Reddit, Twitter and advertising websites alike within a couple of days.

What was the creative? Well, Blackhurst simply took a screenshot of the initial text conversation he had with the owner of the pub about designing the poster in the first place. It includes all the necessary info (because he needed it via text to include in the poster) and finishes with a charming “I love you Dave” as a thank you.

Unfortunately, it actually transpires that the owner of the Friars pub doesn’t even have an iPhone and so the screenshot isn’t genuine, it’s a mock-up. However, it’s genius nonetheless: fun, simple, tongue-in-cheek and unique, well done Dave, we love you too.

Check it out below.