St. Patrick’s Day, held annually on March 17th, honours the Patron Saint of Ireland, a Bishop who spent thirty years converting the Irish Celtic to Christianity before dying on this date in the fifth century.
Few people would know the actual true origin of this day, and why celebrations are held. Yet countless people, throughout Europe, North and South America, Canada, Asia and Australia will dress in the colour green and attend Irish parades or Irish pubs in order to drink Guinness all day long. Television news programs in these countries will cross to footage of people celebrating in pubs, newspapers will feature articles and pictures of the celebrations and the social media community will be full of well wishes for the Irish.
A day celebrated in Ireland since the ninth century, and the in the USA throughout areas such as Boston and New York where large numbers of Irish had settled since 1737 and 1776 respectively, this celebration was taken global in 1995 when the Irish government decided to capitalise on the recent exportation of the Irish pub concept throughout the world, with 1500 Irish pubs having been opened throughout the world in 1992 alone, in an attempt to promote Ireland and drive tourism numbers into the country.
As the national drink of Ireland, Guinness (although with no official involvement in this PR strategy) became the sole brand to benefit from this campaign. To compare the effects on Guinness as a brand it should be noted that over 10 million pints of Guinness are drank globally every day of the year. On St Patrick’s Day alone, Melbourne pubs will serve at least 1 million pints. 10% of the daily amount drunk globally will be consumed on one day in Melbourne’s ten Irish pubs, whose numbers make up less than 0.4% of the amount of the Irish pubs operated globally.
The success of the campaign on both the Irish as a ‘brand’ and Diageo, the owner of the brand Guinness, can be compared in exposure only to Christmas and Easter - both days which also celebrate Christian religious events; yet neither generating sales for one brand of product alone. Although numerous confectionary companies would experience an increase in sales at Easter, this increase would be spread among the many companies supplying the chocolate Easter eggs, and not solely monopolised by one company alone. In addition, neither of these holidays can be traced back to and owned by any particular country in the way St. Patrick’s Day is associated with Ireland.
This success could also be compared to the celebration of numerous other countries’ National holidays, and their level of celebrations globally. Italy - a country renowned for giving the world pizza - celebrates their national holiday Festa della Republica on June 2nd, yet celebrations only take place in Italy and those regions throughout the world where large amounts of Italian settlers have occupied. The exact same could be said about America’s Thanksgiving Day, France’s Bastille Day and even our own Australia Day, celebrated by the natives of each country in their own soil and abroad by expats, yet not noticed by the rest of the world. Not one of these events can command the same increase in sales as Diageo does through their Guinness product…
