Good things come to those who wait (Guinness)

The slogan formed the cornerstone of advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO's successful pitch to secure the Guinness account in 1996.

The first piece of the "Good Things..." campaign to be launched was the sixty-second Swimblack television and cinema commercial, in which an aging local sports hero annually swims in a race from an offshore buoy to his brother's seafront pub against the "clock" of pint of Guinness being correctly poured at the bar.

The other major success of the campaign during its original four-year run was the critically acclaimed Surfer commercial released in 1999; a more serious black-and-white piece for television and cinema inspired by Walter Crane's 1892 painting Neptune's Horses.

[1] Two of the more successful slogans tried out between 2000 and 2005 were "Believe" (Tom Crean, Free In, Volcano Rescue) and "A story of light and dark" (Moth, Mustang).

Feeling that none of the replacements that had been tried out in the intervening years had matched the appeal of Good Things..., the agency decided to attempt to find a new angle on their old concept.