Appealing to a Broad Audience – Guinness’ Wheelchair Basketball Commercial

One of the first steps of any effective production is identifying the target audience. On the surface, defining a target audience probably doesn’t seem all that difficult. I mean, you know who your customers are, right?

Well, one of the challenges we often face is that a client’s audience is too broad. When clients are unable to focus on a specific group, it becomes challenging to create a compelling message. The video can become too long (too many messages and content) or too watered down (lack of specific content).

The Best Way to Reach a Broad Audience

Despite the evidence that a highly targeted audience is more effective, many situations still require a video to reach a general audience. So, what is the best way to reach a large demographic? Emotion.

Emotion drives everything we do. Whether you are a young boy battling a rare form of bone cancer or you’re a recent widower trying to move on, emotion can appeal to a large audience. It can inspire the general population to take action.

How Guinness Appeals to a Broad Audience

If you’ve ever gone out drinking with your buddies and wanted to enjoy the flavor of a heavy beer, chances are you’ve had a Guinness. In fact, Guinness appears in more than 150 countries around the globe. The beer sparks conversations among men of all ages in all parts of the world. It’s safe to assume that Guinness has a pretty broad audience.

A few weeks ago, I came across a prime example of Guinness appealing to their large audience. The brand’s latest Wheelchair Basketball commercial has all of the ingredients of an effective message and has the unique ability to emotionally connect with a huge portion of its customers. If you haven’t seen the commercial, take a minute (60 seconds exactly) and check it out below.

Let’s explore how Guinness is able to appeal to a huge market with this 1-minute commercial.

• Competition – Let’s face it, guys are naturally competitive. We enjoy playing sports. We compete at work. We use competition as a driver in many phases of our lives. By opening the commercial with a scene on a basketball court, Guinness establishes a connection with its general audience. A large group of Guinness’ customers relate to the competition on the basketball court – whether they’re avid NBA fans or not.
• Adversity – Just about everyone loves to see a person overcome adversity. In fact, adversity is one of the core components of a good story. In this commercial, we see these guys engaging in fierce competition….in wheelchairs. To many guys, playing a game of basketball is tough. It’s physical. Tiring. To do this in a wheelchair seems incredibly hard.
• Camaraderie – When all but one of the guys stands up at the end, so many emotions are in play. We see how they’ve all been able to overcome some adversity. Most importantly, we see how important friendship is to these guys. This is the payoff. This resonates with a large segment of Guinness’ population. At the end of the day, we all want friendships like this. We want to be these guys on the basketball court. And we want to go have a beer with them afterward.