Guinness’s ‘Surfer’ ad didn’t do that well in research ‘but we ignored it’

No list of the greatest ads of the past 40 years would be complete without Guinness’s ‘Surfer’ ad. The TV spot was creatively brilliant, commercially successful and helped propel the careers of everyone behind it – the brand marketer Andy Fennell, AMV BBDO’s Walter Campbell and director Jonathan Glazer.
Little did the team know they would be making a classic when AMV pitched for the Guinness business in late 1997. The agency of record on the brand for a dozen years