Carlsberg's Lynsey Woods on Telling Stories Around the Pint

Creating a great Carlsberg campaign is getting tougher, admits global brand director Lynsey Woods, in an increasingly noisy and fragmented media landscape. That only makes storytelling more essential to building human connection.

As a beer brand, Carlsberg embraces its role in life’s emotional moments. “We know the role we play in people’s lives — the escape pint, the celebration pint, the divorce pint, the breakup pint, the makeup pint, the first‑date pint. We’re part of those moments,” Woods says.

That realisation sees the global marketing team of nearly 1,500 people focus on authenticity, and on reflecting the brand’s home country, Denmark’s, values of respect, balance, and moderation.

Sustained long‑term growth

Woods has spent nearly five years in the role, having first joined Carlsberg in 2014 after a brief spell at McCormick. After two years she was promoted to director of marketing for core beer in the UK, before spending a couple of years in Hong Kong as international premium brands director for Asia. She then took up her current position in Copenhagen post‑Covid, coinciding with net revenue growth for 19 out of the last 20 quarters — most recently ten per cent for Q1 this year.

She attributes that success to Carlsberg’s obsession with product quality — her own starting point in every role — ensuring the beer and the serve are consistently excellent, and believing no one returns for a bad pint.

“We all like to believe that everybody’s thinking about our brands all day long. But consumers only glance at us for a split second as they walk past the supermarket shelf, or when they scroll past us during an online shop. There’s only the odd moment when you’re on their mind. So I obsess much more about the beer. I obsess much more about the serve, because that’s the lived version of your brand.”

Beyond quality, she prioritises long‑term brand foundations over short‑term campaign spikes, ensuring global markets follow core brand codes.

In 2024, Carlsberg released its first global campaign, 'Do the best things begin with curiosity? Probably', across 120 markets. Led by Woods, it aimed to reinvigorate curiosity in beer. Rooted in the brewery’s 1847 origins and its pioneering work on purified yeast, that purpose now drives modern initiatives that aim to “help more people access more of the best,” Woods explains.

Football sponsorship has been central to communicating that purpose, including during the previous Nations League semifinal, when Carlsberg gave taxi drivers access to major football moments they had missed while driving fans around the city.

Carlsberg’s ongoing work with Liverpool FC, which dates back to 1992, has also been pivotal — most recently enabling Deaf fans to experience 'You’ll Never Walk Alone' alongside fellow supporters at Anfield.

Signs of Unity

Most recently, that intention shaped Carlsberg’s work with Liverpool FC, where its long‑standing sponsorship and partnership with Fold7 produced ‘Signs of Unity’ — a campaign designed to make matchdays more accessible for Deaf and hard‑of‑hearing fans.

Although the anthem is central to the matchday ritual and a symbol of unity for Liverpool fans worldwide, many Deaf supporters have historically been excluded from the experience. In February, working with the British Deaf Association, Carlsberg taught thousands of fans to perform the anthem in British Sign Language (BSL) ahead of the Liverpool vs West Ham match.

The idea emerged from a creative session that immediately resonated with everyone in the room, Woods says, even overcoming “the usual complexities” of working across two major organisations. “They said ‘yes’ straight away — ‘Let’s do this, let’s make this happen.’”

Realising the activation, however, proved complicated, including being prohibited from filming inside the stadium due to rights restrictions, which meant all content had to be captured on phones.

The campaign, created with Fold7 and COPA90, was captured in a short film showing the moment Deaf fans saw the stadium signing in unison — a powerful gesture of visibility and belonging. A wider fan‑engagement programme featuring players, club legends, and Deaf supporters taught the signs in the weeks leading up to the game.

“I’ll never forget the reaction of those Liverpool fans who’ve been in that stadium for 20 or 30 years and never felt how they felt on that day. We’ll never match that,” Woods says.

The work lives on with BSL interpreters at every home match, and BSL training for bar staff at Anfield and selected Greene King pubs, extending access beyond the pitch.

The world of marketing according to Lynsey Woods

Creative Salon: What excites you most about being a marketer?

Lynsey Woods: Oh no two days are ever the same. For me, I love people. I love that I get to snoop on consumers all over the world — what’s happening in India, what’s the latest in China. I get a very privileged look into people’s lives. Most people are busy doing their jobs; they don’t have time to think about how life and culture are changing. It’s just the backdrop of their lives, whereas we get to observe it and sometimes even shape it, if you’re lucky, in a good way.

It’s an incredible human experience because we talk to people all the time and make products that fit into their lives. For me, it’s very cool. I couldn’t work for every brand — it has to be a brand where the values matter, and they care about what they’re making for people. I’ve been lucky to find that throughout my career. It’s a very cool job.

Is there a campaign you’re particularly proud of?

We were talking the other day in the office about legacy beer work. If you look back at the 90s, when the big beer ads were so epic, and now — because consumer behaviour has changed so much — everything feels like it must be refreshed and new all the time. What I’m seeing a lot of at the minute are these in‑and‑out‑fast campaigns. Just when you really start to like something, it changes.

I’m always careful talking about other brands, but one that’s fairly easy is the recent BA work — that was game‑changing, and I really liked it. And then, just as we were starting to love it as consumers, they had to switch and change. Things move so fast now. I wish we would build on something. Before I worked at Carlsberg, the Carlsberg work was my absolute favourite.

What makes the ideal agency partner?

Limited egos, for me. It’s part of my values and the values of the people I work with — we want to be equal partners at the table. After 20 years in marketing, we’ve all met people who insist something is great even when you tell them it doesn’t feel, sound, or look like their brand. So I look for openness to learn and listen.

What’s massively important is that they know my business as well as I do. Not the creatives — they should focus on pure creativity and joy — but the client team should understand our business, our challenges, our performance, and be able to speak to it. I want them to feel part of it, not like we’re having a transactional relationship. They should be in the thick of it with us, through the good and the bad.

Luckily, we’ve been growing for the last five years — 19 out of 20 quarters of net revenue growth — and Fold7 are part of that. We thank them when we deliver those results.