Beavertown, Here Be Dragons and the brands promoting male openness

Calming influence

Here Be Dragons has won well-deserved praise for its Beavertown Brewery's CALM tie-in, filming UK mates in raw emotional check-ins, featuring Joe Marler. The campaign sees limited 'Open Up' crisps promoting interaction via prompts in 300+ pubs. 

Timed for Valentine's Day, the campaign embraced the simple routine of pub crisp-sharing to foster male openness, backed by research. 

Packing a punch

Creative Moment (CM): How did the campaign come about, and what sorts of conversations took place to handle this topic sensitively?

Emma Dennis (ED): This is year three of Beavertown and Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), and throughout the partnership, each of Beavertown’s activations has focused on breaking the norms around mental health to help people open up to their friends.

This year was no different, but we’ve created crisps, a stool to invite conversations in a pub, and activated in climbing gyms - so we knew we needed to go big.

On Valentine’s Day, there’s often a lot of focus on romantic love, but we wanted to spotlight another kind of connection that matters just as much: the platonic love between mates - and what could be bigger than a public declaration of love?

So together, Beavertown’s internal team, Strongwatch, and CALM created “Tell a Mate Why You Love Them”.

CM: What do these sort of campaigns often get wrong?

ED: There is still a lot of stigma when it comes to men’s mental health, and as a brand, getting the right balance between doing something meaningful while driving a brand message can be difficult. Doing something in this space needs to make sense for the brand, otherwise it feels random, unauthentic and ultimately falls short.

Beavertown is a beer brand, so there were nuances we had to be aware of when it came to creating a campaign about mental health. We tackled it by working closely with the team at CALM to make sure our messaging was sensitive and on point.

By the same logic, the campaign needed to stay light while still driving home a serious message. To do that, guided by CALM, we focused on meaningful conversationand the benefits of connecting with your friends, which is the right place for Beavertown to play a part in.

CM: We've seen a lot of beer brands and traditionally male products get involved in these sorts of issues. Are there any standouts for you?

ED: Movember is a great standout example. We love it as they have taken a one-off charity idea and turned it into an authentic cultural moment, which most of the UK now participates in each year. Movember has taken the topic and normalised it across the nation, engraving it in culture.

We also loved Gymshark’s Deload pop‑up barbershop, as similar to our campaign, it was based on a real-life insight, which brought these conversations up naturally and authentically placed the topic into the media. The campaign was centred on encouraging men to be more comfortable talking during everyday interactions, such as when in a barber’s chair, helping to destigmatise emotional openness and encourage support‑seeking.

Finally, we wanted to highlight the Paddy Power prostate cancer awareness campaign, Unbearable Prick, which featured Piers Morgan and Lord Alan Sugar. They utilised talent to bring an authentic spin to their campaign, grab attention and spark conversation about men’s health. They used clever banter between the two big personalities to make a serious topic more relatable and less intimidating. Using familiar figures and humour helped cut through stigma, making the message about checking one’s health more engaging and accessible for men.