Carlsberg Takes Us on a Visual Pub Crawl through Liverpool FC History

When you hear “longest partnership in Premier League history,” you immediately think of  years of remarkable pub moments, an unbreakable community, and a fandom that withstands the ups and downs of football history. Those essential components of a perfect partnership are being immortalised in this year’s 30th anniversary campaign of Carlsberg’s sponsorship of Liverpool FC. The multi-channel campaign launched across a whopping 26 markets worldwide and was born from the collaborative effort between by The Network partners Worth Your While, SMALL, The Council and Drive Studios. Shot by Danish director Tore Frandsen, the lead film for the anniversary campaign took audiences on an epic pub crawl through epic moments, frozen in time, all connected by one universal feeling any football fan knows: cheering on your club with one hand, while trying not to spill your pint with the other. Nostalgia-ridden and tear-jerking for football lovers and especially Liverpool fans, the film was tied together by a bespoke soundtrack in the style of Liverpool’s own fan bards and singer-songwriters. 

The song recalls the Merseyside sound of bands such as The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers, adding to the reminiscent vibe. Written by Danish music video director-turned-composer and producer, Lasse Martinussen with vocals by Chris Friffith, a member of the ‘90s local Liverpool band The Real People, with sound engineering by Kevin Koch. The track’s lyrics actually mention players and moments from the last 30 years while summing up the relationship with a reference to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ Liverpool’s anthem. But let’s look at this iconic partnership from up close.

“Back in 1992 Carlsberg was looking for a platform with a global reach for the brand and the opportunity to be front of shirt at Liverpool FC was too good to pass,” says Louise Bach, head of sponsorship at Carlsberg. “The brand has been a football supporter since the 1970s when we became the official partner of the Danish national team, so continuing the legacy with a world-renowned club was the best next step. We have shared the ups and downs during the last 30 years but have never wavered in the partnership. During the 30 years LFC have won every major trophy in football and we have been there to celebrate with them.” 

Louise makes a reference to one of the most iconic Champions League finals in history, against AC Milan in Istanbul in 2005, but also mentioned the Premier League win in 2020 as a most memorable moment. For those occasions, Carlsberg was able to celebrate alongside LFC fans all over the world, by launching its limited-edition Champions Can. 30 years later, the beer brand is still finding new ways to leverage the strong link between the two and sitting next to fans at every game.

“The partnership is deeply rooted in a set of shared values, such as loyalty and determination, but also in the shared pursuit of perfection,” Louise tells me. “At Carlsberg, we understand how a small change can have a massive impact and we recognise that in Liverpool too. Especially under the guardianship of Jürgen Klopp. He and the team leave nothing to chance but always try to push for better, even in the smallest detail. The same is true for Carlsberg. Our world-class brewmasters are always looking to improve, whether it’s in looking at new brewing techniques, more sustainable raw materials, or different strains of yeast.”

And when it comes to what the partnership brings to Carlsberg as a brand, as well as why it remains so valuable to this day, Louise explains that it delivers on several fronts. First of all, it is a platform for the brand to reach massive engaged audiences. “You will find Liverpool FC fans in literally all corners of the world and as an audience they are highly engaged. But it also plays a big role in building our brand equity. The partnership delivers on a few key brand metrics and helps drive our premiumisation journey.”

From the agency’s side, when working on such a memorable partnership there is a lot of pressure to get it ‘right’ and do justice to the fans. Per Pedersen, chief creative officer at by The Network says that it has been a dream task for several football fanatics at by The Network, and other big Liverpool junkies. “So you can imagine there was a huge amount of passion in the brief,” says Per. “With that said, to be allowed to put our creative fingerprints on this three-decade-long partnership celebrating two such iconic brands, of course came with a degree of pressure. We channelled it into an ambition to make a gift for the fans that lived up to the legacy.” Beyond the film, Per explains that to celebrate the unique moment, Carlsberg released a range of limited-edition ‘legends’ cans, each one time-stamped to a specific moment in history. “We kept going back to the six different moments on the cans as our compass, and tried to provide as authentic a view of pub-watched matches as possible, to the point of almost smelling the carpet.”

In fact, the agency and director Tore Frandsen were so committed to carrying out the feeling of watching the game in a pub through our screens, that they visited a Danish superfan’s house that was decorated like a Liverpool museum. “It was me and one of the creatives, Tim Pashen, who went there,” says Tore. “It was quite a funny experience, to be honest. Tim is Australian, so we had to speak English in this Danish Liverpool fan’s house, but I first introduced ourselves in Danish. This fan’s Danish accent sounded perfectly ordinary, but then when we swapped to English, Tim and I were shocked to hear him go totally Scouse. He had been living in the Liverpool universe for so long that it had taken over his accent!” In terms of what the team got from the visit to help the feeling of the film, they got ahold of some old VHS tapes to use as inspo for the scenario in the bar, as well as some old photographs. “It was just so inspiring to see how much one person can love football. It made me realise that we had to give that extra effort, go the extra mile - the benchmark was to make this one fan proud of the film.”

This was at the core of the brief for by The Network as well. “A lot of our early discussions concentrated around authenticity and finding the right point of view,” saysi Per. “It’s easy to make ideas that only focus on Liverpool and conversely we didn’t want to overclaim Carlsberg’s role. As supporters of Liverpool FC for 30 years, we felt we could send a message to the other supporters who’ve been there for 30 years - the fans.” This is why they recognised that while Nike’s role is on the pitch as sponsors of the players, their playing field is the pub, as ‘fans of the fans’. Carlsberg has been the one constant that carried those fans and could be found in their grip, in the carpets of The Park, The Flatiron and The Arkles, or on the front of the supporters' shirts. 

“We knew that, but we needed something more evocative to lead the execution,” says Per. “That’s where the idea of a time-freezing pub crawl came through. Because behind Carcia’s ghost goal or Rush’s record breaking 287th, every true fan of the Reds knows exactly where they were when these legendary moments happened. Right down to the seat at the bar, the colour of their jersey, and the beer they were drinking. They are like snapshots forever frozen in time.” This idea stayed pretty much untouched for months, until, at the eleventh-hour, Carlsberg and Worth Your While (part of by The Network) questioned if there was a way to make it even more insightful, and find a true role for the beer beyond being a passive object in people’s hands.

“It was then that we stumbled upon a clip from the 2021 Euros where an everyday pub-going football fan made world news for saving his pint of Carlsberg from fellow celebrating fans,” shares Lukas Lund, creative director at Worth Your While. “One quick rewrite and meeting later, and the script landed with what you see in the final film - tapping into that all too familiar feeling for football fans: ‘cheering on your club with one hand, while protecting your beer with the other’. In this case, probably the best beer in the world.”

From then onwards, it was hard work with Tore to achieve the perfect look for the perfect, frozen-in-time slow-mo. “The way we achieved the slow-mo was deceptively simple: we had our actors stand incredibly still, making only the tiniest motions, and had the camera move around them,” says the director.“At points I even stood on the bar, demonstrating to the cast the speed I imagined their bodies moving at. We shot something like 120 frames per second but I like to think the film has the look of something shot with 5000. This meant we actually didn’t have very many spilled pints. If we’d been shooting in real time, things would have been a mess. But as it was, our floors were completely dry. Shame, since it would’ve added to the pub atmosphere.”

Slow-mo wasn’t the only feature in the shots that made them unforgettable and carried that feeling of needing to save your pint with your life. It was also the lighting that brought it to the audiences. “Pubs tend to be pretty dark spaces, and my DP João de Botelho and I thought that to have a realistic ray of light coming into that dark space and conveniently lighting up all the beer could look pretty fake. Instead, we wanted to just enhance that light, a little over-dramatically, like a painting. Turning the beer into the hero of the frame.” In fact, Tore and his team were so dedicated to making the beer look as good as possible, that they had a guy on set specifically in charge of the foam. Ordinary beer foam would have gone flat in about five minutes, so instead he created special fake foam that was able to stay in place for hours at a time.

And when it came to casting, the team looked for people who resembled the reference pictures they had found from Liverpool throughout the years. “We weren’t able to fly in Liverpool fans, just because we shot out of Liverpool. With that said, we did find one guy who has a Liverpool tattoo on his chest, which makes me at least pretty sure that he’s a Liverpool fan. He’s featured in the first slow-mo shot of the film,” says Tore. “Needless to say though, after this filming experience I’m confident that every cast member has become a Liverpool fan for life.” And after seeing this campaign, there might be a few more out there!