Truly awards GS&P creative account year after Ogilvy appointment

Goodby, Silverstein & Partners has regained the creative account for Truly, Boston Beer Co.’s seltzer and spirit brand, a year after losing it to Ogilvy. A spokesperson for Boston Beer confirmed the switch but declined to say what prompted the change. The Omnicom shop is also the creative agency for Boston Beer-owned Sam Adams. Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here Goodby had held the Truly account from 2019 through 2022, a period that saw the hard seltzer phenomenon blast off and then fall back to earth. WPP’s Oglivy took over early last year. “We love working on brands everyone knows and has shared. We are going to take the spirit of Truly to new places,” Jeff Goodby, Goodby's co-chairman and co-founder, said in a statement. Ogilvy said it resigned the account last year but declined to comment further. The hard seltzer category continued to struggle in 2023 as consumers turned toward spirits-based ready-to-drink cocktails or back toward light beers. Truly has suffered along with the category, with the brand’s dollar sales down 25% to $725 million for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 16, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights, citing Nielsen data from a Goldman Sachs analyst report. In a recent consumer survey by the online alcohol retailer Drizly, 34% of customers said they planned to purchase seltzer in 2024—down from 37% a year ago. Seltzer’s share of Drizly’s overall beer category shrank from 19% to 17% last year. But the news isn’t all bleak. Truly Vodka Seltzer, introduced in October of 2022, made “solid inroads” in the growing RTD spirits space last year, Beer Marketer’s Insights said, doing $20 million in sales for the 52 weeks ended Dec. 16. Sales for the four weeks ended Dec. 16 dipped by 16%, however, indicating the brand was struggling to lap its initial launch. Truly Vodka Seltzer last year was relaunched as Truly Vodka Soda, to reflect the bar call, along with new packaging. Truly also markets Tequila sodas, as well as a line of flavored full-strength vodkas. Truly last year moved to energize sales through the “Lightly Fantastic” campaign focused on the seltzer brand’s refreshing flavors and “lighter side of life” positioning. An ad created by what the brand described as an independent team showed a man dancing on water to Yaz’s 1980s hit “Situation.” Goodby has since refreshed that positioning to “Keep it Light” and has produced the brand’s most recent spots, which show the same man hovering above a mechanical bull. Goodby’s work for Truly included “Do it for the Flavor,” which celebrated the return of nightlife from pandemic lockdowns, and “Our Best Flavors,” which promoted the addition of real fruit juice to the brand’s lineup. The Truly win follows other recent good news for the agency—it held on to its BMW creative account after a long review that ended last month, and picked up BMW-owned Mini in the process. The agency also won an assignment to do Mtn Dew’s Super Bowl ad.

Truly awards GS&P creative account year after Ogilvy appointment

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