• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, August 25, 2017

I don’t normally write about dead guys that give speeches at Tedx gatherings, but it’s a slow summer Thursday in late August and this one came over the transom, so why not. 

Plus,  this dead guy was a brewer — Carlsberg founder J.C. Jacobsen — and beer is one of my favorite beverages. 

Anyway, bringing him back to life, in the form of a hologram, was an interesting exercise in creativity, courtesy of Carlsberg and Happiness, part of Interpublic’s FCB. 

J.C., who died 130 years ago, gave his speech at the TedxCopenhagen conference today. The talk was about the philosophy behind his beer and how it can help in everyday life and “why you should answer every question with the word probably.” 

He went on about how some people view the world in absolute terms and ignore the shades in between, which is the source of a lot of the world’s storm and stress.

Of course, “probably” was a key word in Carlsberg’s tagline for many years — “Probably The Best Beer In The World” — developed by Saatchi & Saatchi in the 1970s. 

Yep, maybe it was, and maybe it wasn’t. All in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, there’s definitely a lot of wiggle room there for debate, which, in part, was the point of J.C.’s talk. 

Have a look at his talk if you want here. There is also a clip about how the company — which has taken a lot of its content efforts in-house in recent years — and how the agency used hologram technology to create the presentation. See that here.