Ad of the Day: Guinness Has Made the Only Ad You Need to See This Fourth of July

BBDO teams with Noam Murro for another evocative spot about everyday heroes.

Guinness is on a roll globally with its "Made of More" advertising. Now, for the Fourth of July, the brand has released the latest installment of the campaign in the U.S.—the lovely, quietly patriotic spot below, called "Empty Chair."

We won't spoil the plot. But leave it to an Irish brewer to make the most proudly American commercial of this Independence Day season. (An English brewer, meanwhile, has made some of the funniest Fourth of July ads this year. And where are the U.S. brewers? Mostly doing cartoonish work by comparison, it seems.)

For "Empty Chair," BBDO New York teamed up again with Biscuit Filmworks director Noam Murro, who directed last fall's brilliant "Basketball" spot. Once again the delayed reveal is deftly handled, and it's an approach that nicely embodies the tagline. The ads themselves, like the everyday heroes they celebrate, are "Made of More" than they seem at first—rewarding the viewer for sticking with them.

"Basketball" was weirdly overlooked in Cannes last month (it wasn't shortlisted in Film or Film Craft), as the judges handed five Lions to AMV BBDO's "Sapeurs" for Guinness Europe instead. But as "Empty Chair" shows, Guinness can be as proud of its U.S. marketing as anything else it's doing globally right now.