Guinness becomes official beer of the Premier League
Long associated with rugby via its Six Nations tie-up, Guinness has inked its first global partnership in football.
Guinness has announced its first global partnership in football as the official beer of the Premier League.
The four-year agreement begins for the 2024/25 Premier League season, which kicks off in August. A new campaign platform will also launch in August to mark the start of the season. Guinness replaces Budweiser, which took over from Carling as the official beer of the Premier League in 2019.
Guinness global brand director Stephen O’Kelly describes the partnership as bringing together “two iconic global brands”.
“We can’t wait to bring beautiful pints to the beautiful game,” he says. “When the first ball is kicked off in August, Guinness will be building on its international legacy in sport with a new campaign reaching millions of fans, who follow and enjoy the Premier League in their own unique way across the globe.”
The Diageo-owned beer brand has pledged to leverage its “distinctive marketing, creative advertising and history of activating world-class sports sponsorships” to create engaging experiences for fans.
Guinness already has a long-standing connection with rugby. The official beer of the Six Nations since 2007, the brand has an association with the game going back decades.
How Guinness became Britain’s most popular pint
As well as reaching the millions of UK consumers who follow the Premier League, the new partnership enables Guinness to engage fans worldwide. The Premier League is the most-watched football league globally, reaching around 900 million homes in 189 countries.
The brand also becomes the Premier League’s responsible drinking partner, with Guinness 0.0 being named the official non-alcoholic beer of the league.
“I’m particularly excited for the brand to build on the impressive growth that Guinness 0.0 has seen since its launch and using our status as the official non-alcoholic beer of the Premier League to lay the foundations for further global roll-out around the world,” says Diageo’s European president, John Kennedy.
Launched in 2020, Guinness 0.0 became the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beer globally in 2023. In the UK, it is the best-selling non-alcoholic beer in the four-can pack format (as of November 2023). Diageo claims the product has added 500,000 incremental consumers to Guinness year on year.
It is fair to say the beer giant has gone from strength to strength in recent years. Last year, Guinness became Britain’s most popular pint, accounting for one in every nine pints pulled in the UK, and saw a sales uplift of 19% across Europe.
Guinness was also crowned Marketing Week’s 2023 Brand of the Year, in recognition of growth driven by leveraging its distinctive brand DNA with tactical excellence to reach consumers over 200 years since its core product was created.
