Beer is Art in Newcastle’s ‘Taste the Lighter Side of Dark’
Things aren’t always what they appear. This thought holds true for Newcastle Brown Ale: it’s a beer that’s dark in color, but surprisingly smooth to drink. “Taste the Lighter Side of Dark” was the theme of our advertising campaign for Newcastle Brown Ale in 2011, and our outdoor executions embodied the same sense of surprise, discovery and uniqueness.
For this “Shadow Art” billboard, Vitro and Newcastle Brown Ale started with 3,000 real Newcastle Brown Ale bottle caps and a 256 square foot outdoor board. Stacking, bending and gluing the bottle caps into precisely the right position, we created a billboard that looked like a random assortment of bottle caps by day. But at night, as the sun went down and the lights came on, everything changed. The billboard became a shadow sculpture: a human face, and shadow arm reaching for a pint of Newcastle. Like Newcastle Brown Ale, this installation wasn’t what it first appeared to be. And like the beer, it quickly became a hit, drawing night time crowds that stopped to appreciate the work and take pictures.
The billboard also became an international media sensation, appearing in a leading creative journals from the US to Japan to France. The Shadow Art billboard was featured in Forbes Magazine, Yahoo News, the Huffington Post, Beer Business Daily, and was named one of the 24 “Coolest Billboards We’ve Ever Seen” by Business Insider Magazine.
