Is This Probably The Best Beer Ad in the World?

Mock-up of Carlsberg Free Beer Dispensing Billboard (2015)

On 8th April 2015, near to the Old Truman Bewery in Shoreditch, London, Carlsberg (the beer that claims to be "probably the best beer in the world") set up what is probably the best beer poster in the world - a poster that gives out FREE BEER!

Yes, Carlsberg made a billborad that gives out free beer. 

I know. It sounds like something from the 20th century (maybe 1970s America?), but this has happened. A brewer has done a publicity campaign giving out free beer. Carlsberg must have a lot of balls, doing this in a time when the very idea sounds like (to a notable percentage of the population) the anti-smoking ad giving away free cigarettes I made last year. But, so far, I have heard no news of  large drunken riots in London.

Carlsberg do plan to roll this out across the UK. Is this a good idea? I don't know, considering the British's reputation when it comes to drink. I bet the usual people (The Salvation Army, the AA (and the other AA as well), etc) will protest this in the usual reactionary way, but I don't think it'll do anything. In fact (judging from the history books), it will make more people drink from the billboard.

So, people who are appalled by the idea who want to protest - don't protest. It'll make things worse! One of the lessons from history people repeatably fail to learn is that as soon as someone makes a fuzz about something (a book, a film, an ad campaign, etc) others will wonder why that person is making a fuzz and be curious enough to do the very thing you didn't want them to do!

Think of when many Romans became Christians when it was a persecuted cult in Rome.

Think of the many people in 1979 who travelled vast distances to see Monty Python's Life of Brian, because their council or country had banned that film, because the powers at be thought it was blasphemous.

And think of the many things that happened in recent years that have resulted from injunctions or someone trying to act their "right to be forgotten"....

The "Right to be Forgotten" discussion on Last Week Tonight (May 2014)

My call to not protest can apply to all forms of cultural protest. That's movies, books, video games with questionable content, or crazes that don't do physical harm (crazes that do should be protested against).

I know, my definition can sound ambiguous, like a tax law with an unintended loophole, but.... 

I think its better if I explain in another blog. 

But for now, I say it applies to questionable ad campaigns, like this one.

And maybe, it will become (probably) the best ad campaign ever - for not causing a drunken brawl.

Would that be great?