Can’t remember what you did last night? Blame it on the logger.

A recent print and transit campaign for Niagara’s Best Lager, from small St. Catharines, Ont.-based brewery Niagara’s Best Beer, features evidence of drunken blunders, with a small lumberjack in the corner of each with a speech bubble saying ‘Sorry!’ One execution features a cellphone displaying numerous late-night outgoing calls to girls. Arnold in Toronto branded the lager, which just launched last fall.

‘The icon works as a bit of a scapegoat for when you overindulge,’ says Matt

Syberg-Olsen, co-CD at Arnold Toronto, adding that they chose a logger because of the obvious pun, and also because lumberjacks are a very Canadian icon. ‘We wanted it to associate the beer with good times with friends.’

The company’s original brew, Niagara’s Best Blonde, has its own icon: an image of a fifties-style blonde pin-up. So, attaching an icon to its new lager wasn’t much of a stretch.

The lager, which targets university students, just launched last fall and has already been a hit at the Beer Store. ‘They have trouble keeping it in stock,’ says Syberg-Olsen.

The campaign is only running in the St. Catharines area. ‘It’s a heavy buy in very targeted areas,’ says Syberg-Olsen, adding that the media plan placed extra emphasis on bus routes that stop at Brock University and Niagara College, as well as student newspapers like Brock Press.

Local radio spots are expected to launch this month.

client: Jamie Burns, co-owner

agency: Arnold

creative: Matt Syberg-Olsen, Chris Hall

account service: Peter Brough

production: Luca Sanguigni

photography: Philip Rostron,

Instil Productions