Americans for
Disciplined Behavior
oppose arrival
of Amsterdam heer
In commercials in the
United States a certain
Garrison Boyd has been
urgently advising his fellow
Americans not to drink
Amstel beer. That beer
comes from Amsterdam,
a city that is known for its
'reckless open mindedness',
and Boyd sees Amstel as a
dangerous exponent of
what he calls the Amsterdam
'culture of chaos'.
boyd and
behavior
garrison
disciplined
'a message
americans
GARRISON BOYD L
I
In his battle against Amstel Garrison
Boyd is tackling things in a big way.
He has set up an organisation called
'Americans for Disciplined Behavior'
and he even has his own Internet
site, www.g-boyd.com, to propagate
his standards and values as a means
of saving the USA. As his world view
is based on the values of the early
nineteen-sixties, it is logical that
Mr Boyd sees the open mindedness
of a city like Amsterdam as a sign of
decadence.
In a radio commercial we hear
Boyd in a supermarket trying to per
suade housewives not to buy Amstel
beer. In another message we see him
in a tiny rowing boat making every
effort to stop a ship loaded with con
tainers of Amstel from reaching port.
CREATIVE
Heineken USA, which introduced
Amstel and Amstel 1870 several
months ago, received reactions from
concerned Americans. "Do you reali
se that a certain Garrison Boyd is
buying airtime in America and warn
ing people against the city of
Amsterdam and Amstel beer?" Yes,
Heineken USA was certainly aware of
that. Even more so, that was its aim.
In fact, Garrison Boyd doesn't
exist. Nor does his organisation
Americans for Disciplined Behavior.
Boyd is the brainchild of the cre
ative people at the Wells Rich
Green advertising agency in New
York. They had been commission
ed to devise a campaign that
would bring the launch of Amstel
and Amstel 1870 to the attention
of consumers. The budget was
small, certainly when compared
to the advertising budgets of the
big American breweries.
The agency therefore had to
come up with a high-impact cam
paign. And the novel approach it
chose certainly caught on; the
campaign met with a wildly
enthusiastic reception and sales of
Amstel were way above expecta
tions. At one New York radio sta
tion they were so appreciative of
the Amstel commercial that they
added "canned" applause at the end.
HERITAGE
For Heineken USA the campaign
had a dual aim: first, to focus
attention on the history and heri
tage of the brand and, second, to
couple the Amstel name to the
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www.amstel.com
