Joe Burrow, Bengals legend, will soon be gracing your televisions with a new ad for the new non-alcoholic beer Guinness 0 … sort of. The young quarterback appears with all-time great Joe Montana in an ad for Guinness 0 jerseys, specifically, and all proceeds from every jersey purchase will go to the Joe Burrow Foundation.
Montana’s jersey number in college was #0, but offensive players in the NFL were not allowed to wear the number zero until this season. “Maybe I’ll start to wear zero,” Montana jokes in the ad. “It’s my number, Joe,” Burrow deadpans. “The future is zero.”
Why the ad for jerseys, and not for the drink itself? Well, active NFL players can’t do promotional work for alcohol companies, per league rules. Montana—who originated the “Joe Cool” nickname that Burrow now sports—has been the spokesman for Guinness since 2020 but has been out of the league since 1994. As everyone in Cincinnati knows, however, Burrow is very active; in the last two years, he’s been to a Super Bowl and an AFC Championship Game, with no signs of slowing down. (He currently also has the highest completion percentage in NFL history.)
This rule has led to some ad campaigns for NFL players that are rather creative. For example, Kansas City QB (and Bengals rival) Patrick Mahomes starred in an ad last summer for “The Coors Light,” a flashlight with the Coors Light logo where all proceeds went to Mahomes’ charity foundation. In that ad, he opens the flashlight like a beer and pours out the batteries, while an announcer proclaims that “Nothing beats the sturdy feeling of a Coors Light in your hand.”
Burrow’s new campaign is just the latest attempt by companies to skirt the NFL’s policies, and there’s supposedly more Guinness ads to come. If they’re all this funny, we say keep ‘em coming! Hopefully the future continues to be zero for Burrow … zero sacks, that is.
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