Bavaria hires Mickey Rourke to make non-alcoholic beer cool

Dutch brewer Bavaria is enlisting hard-drinking actor Mickey Rourke to star in its TV ads for alcohol-free beer, which breaks today (2 August).

Bavaria hopes the hiring of Rourke will change people’s attitudes towards its non-alcoholic Wit beer by removing its “uncool” image.

The campaign will feature two TV ads starring Rourke. One ad will feature Rourke unkowingly drinking alcohol-free Wit, after being served by a concerned hotel barman who is aware of Rourke’s troubled past.

The ad then cuts away to Rourke going on a rampage through the hotel lobby because his mini-bar only has alcohol-free beer, before he ends up in the bar and asks the barman for another Wit.

The second comic ad features Rourke drinking a Wit while sitting with his girlfriend and pet Chihuahua. The beer leaves Rourke with a white foam moustache, before Rourke demands “Are you looking at my girl?” when a man stares at him.

Bavaria hit the headlines recently after a guerilla marketing campaign resulted in the arrest and trial of one of its representatives during the FIFA World Cup.

This story first appeared on pitch