If you’ve managed to avoid the latest UK ad for the Danish brewery giant Carlsberg, you probably don’t use social media very much.
Facebook users in Denmark have been falling over one another to share the video starring movie star Mads Mikkelsen, which was released five days ago.
The 15 million pound campaign, ‘The Danish Way’, is seeking to address a recent decline in lager sales in the UK by refocusing the brand through its Danish provenance.
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In the video, which can be found on YouTube, Mikkelsen cycles around Copenhagen musing on what makes Danes the happiest people in the world.
He variously goes to an outdoor swimming baths, down the middle of a long table of diners, through a flat full of Danish designer furniture, past a woman lying in bed and finally out through the back of her wardrobe and through the iconic elephant gates of the Carlsberg Brewery, all the while extolling the work/life balance.
In one scene, a whole group of people knock off work at the same time: 17:00, the giveaway that this is aimed at the Brits, as most Danish offices are deserted by 16:05.
At the end of the ad, Mikkelsen is given a drink and the tagline uses a variation on Carlsberg’s well-known “probably the best beer in the world” slogan.
It is not Mikkelsen’s first Carlsberg ad, as he appeared in one playing a waiter in 2002.
