Gen Z is top of mind for most marketers, but Beck’s built its latest campaign around excluding them. The beer brand collaborated with agency AKQA to release Beck’s 70+, a limited-edition brew designed for seniors.
Beck’s claims to be the most bitter mainstream beer in Brazil, but as people age they lose some of their sensitivity to bitter tastes. To compensate for this, Beck’s 70+ ups its levels of International Bitterness Units, a scale that measures the bitterness of beer. The brew can only be purchased online or in stores by shoppers who show an ID demonstrating they are 70 or older.
“For the seniors, it’s basically the same taste of the Beck’s original for younger people,” AKQA global chief creative officer Diego Machado told Adweek. “What could be seen as a weakness becomes a superpower. At this age, they can take way more bitter, but Gen Z can’t really handle this. It’s too much.”
A minute-long video explains the way taste buds change with age, and then launches into a riff on the film Superbad’s McLovin fake ID scene. It shows a woman being IDed to confirm that she is 70+ before bringing a case of the beer to her friends outside. The film was shared across the brand’s digital and social channels, but took off on TikTok where younger consumers were tagging their parents and grandparents.
“They would ask them, ‘Can you find someone to buy this beer for me? I want to try it,’” Machado said.
People began taking the video to heart, offering to create fake IDs just to help others try the 70+ beer. The brand is launching a “grandpa dealers” service that will allow younger users to connect with seniors to buy the beer for them. The campaign’s success will be measured based on social interactions and sales of both the limited-edition beer and the standard Beck’s.
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