PRINT / PACKAGING / STUNT / CONTENT
Colt 45 has always had an interesting history. What started as the cool swagger of Billy Dee Williams had ended with the brand wrapped in brown bags hidden away on stoops of the inner city. Pabst needed to get Colt out of the gutter and into the clubs and hands of Millennials. And they needed to do it without the magical Billy Dee.
Rather than try and reinvent the brand, we saw the opportunity to keep the brand authentic and real - using its heritage to our advantage. We partnered with renowned street artist Jim Mahfood to create a campaign based on a very simple idea: when a night starts with Colt 45, it’s fast, a little out of control and there’s always a story to be told.
What was once used to hide the brand became the canvas for those stories. Mahfood brought our stories to life through a fun comic format - all told on a backdrop of the iconic Colt 45 brown bag. From painted graffiti murals, ads, videos, restroom posters all the way to the cans themselves, everything celebrated the Tales of Colt 45.
Working with Vice magazine, we encouraged readers to share their real stories. Our favorites were illustrated then printed into graphic novels inserted into the magazine.