Guinness Canada has launched its first major campaign for Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale.

The advertising, by the brewery’s new agency, Due North Communications of Toronto, introduces the tag line: ‘Kilkenny Irish Cream Ale brings out the Irish in you.’

Karen Howe, Due North creative director, says the campaign – which adds identifiably Irish symbols to famous works of art – is intended to establish a unique brand positioning for Kilkenny, and induce trial in its primary market.

In one execution, Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker is shown sporting a Celtic armband tattoo. Other well-known works of art that have received a touch of the Irish include the Mona Lisa, who is shown with curly red hair, and Adam and Eve, who wear strategically placed four-leaf clovers instead of fig leaves.

‘The campaign deliberately reaches out to a more educated drinker with its subtlety,’ says Howe, adding the target group is well educated, primarily male and aged 25 to 35.

The print executions are running on transit shelters, on posters and as magazine ads.

Four 30-second radio spots – Fiddle, The Dance, Ballad, and Poetry – feature some humorous situations that can arise after a first taste of Kilkenny.

The campaign runs through to the end of December.