Aviation American Gin's 'The Other Rob' pairs Ryan Reynolds with Rob Thomas in a 30-second film by Maximum Effort, airing nationally on FX and Hulu in November
ARCHIVEAviation American Gin Bets on The Other Rob to Win Over Two Markets
Aviation American Gin's 'The Other Rob' is a 30-second film created by Maximum Effort, released on 7 November 2023 and distributed nationally across FX and Hulu, in which Ryan Reynolds enlists Grammy-winning Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas as a stand-in for an unavailable co-owner, teasing Welsh-language chants about Aviation Gin planned for 2024.
The campaign launched simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom, anchoring its narrative in a real-world relationship that audiences in both markets already recognised. Ryan Reynolds co-owns Wrexham AFC alongside Rob McElhenney, and that partnership had accumulated considerable public attention across the US and UK by late 2023. When McElhenney was unavailable to appear in the Aviation Gin commercial, Maximum Effort constructed an entire creative premise around his absence, substituting a different Rob — Rob Thomas — and treating the substitution as the joke itself. Reynolds delivered the wry observation that Wrexham fans had grown used to seeing him and the 'other' Rob together, but that McElhenney was not legally permitted to appear in Aviation Gin commercials, as reported by The Drum.
The film asked Rob Thomas to count in Welsh — 'Un, Dau, Tri, Pedwar,' meaning One, Two, Three, Four — and teased that full Welsh-language chants about Aviation Gin were coming in 2024. This detail gave the campaign a built-in sequel hook and extended its narrative relevance beyond the initial November air date. Produced by Loon Productions in partnership with Maximum Effort, the spot belongs to a tradition of self-aware, culturally loaded short-form film that Maximum Effort has refined since Reynolds and George Dewey co-founded the agency in 2018, according to Wikipedia. In both the United States and the United Kingdom, the campaign positioned Aviation Gin as a brand that earns attention through wit and genuine cultural reference rather than conventional spirits advertising.
ARCHIVEAviation American Gin occupies a specific competitive position in the premium gin segment, where distinctiveness in brand voice has become as commercially significant as liquid quality. The global gin market reached a volume of 111.03 million nine-litre cases in 2023, up 5.4 percent year-over-year from 105.3 million cases in 2022, according to The Spirits Business. Within that landscape, the United States represents approximately 24.6 percent of global gin market volume in 2023, according to analysis cited by Yahoo Finance, making it the single most important territory for a brand with Aviation's distribution ambitions.
The premium end of that market is contested by well-capitalised incumbents. Hendrick's, distributed by William Grant and Sons, has built a globally recognised eccentric identity that appeals to a similar audience of culturally curious drinkers. Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire, both owned by spirits conglomerates Diageo and Bacardi respectively, dominate shelf space and media spend in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Against that competition, Aviation Gin's strategic advantage is not production scale but narrative capital — specifically the creative output of Maximum Effort and the authentic celebrity ownership that Reynolds brings. Diageo acquired Aviation Gin and Davos Brands in August 2020 for $335 million upfront, with potential additional payments of approximately $610 million over ten years, according to Diageo's own corporate reporting, and Reynolds retained an ongoing ownership interest following that transaction.
The Other Rob activates a strategy Maximum Effort has refined across several campaigns: treat a real cultural moment — in this case the Wrexham AFC ownership story — as the source material rather than the brief. In the United Kingdom especially, where Wrexham's promotion story had generated significant press attention, the campaign carried a layer of meaning that a conventional product-focused gin advertisement could not replicate. For United States audiences, the Reynolds persona served as the primary entry point, with the Welsh element functioning as an intriguing cultural signal rather than a familiar reference.
The Other Rob was directed by Oren Brimer for Loon Productions in partnership with Maximum Effort, as documented in production records cited by Clapboard. The spot runs to 30 seconds and is constructed around a single, economical creative conceit: the person who should be in the advertisement is not there, and the person who is there is the wrong one. That structural inversion is the joke, and the film's craft lies in how efficiently it establishes the premise, delivers the comedy, and exits before the idea is exhausted.
Ryan Reynolds anchors the tone through the same dry, self-deprecating register that Maximum Effort has deployed across Aviation Gin's advertising since 2018. Rob Thomas, as Matchbox Twenty's frontman and a figure whose fame operates in an entirely different cultural register from Reynolds, generates comedic friction simply by being present in a gin commercial counting to four in Welsh. The Welsh-language sequence — 'Un, Dau, Tri, Pedwar' — is shot and delivered with enough sincerity that it reads simultaneously as genuine effort and absurdist performance, which is precisely the tonal balance Maximum Effort has made its signature across the Alcoholic Drinks category.
The production ran on FX and Hulu nationally across the United States, with distribution also reaching the United Kingdom, and the media placement choices reflect a deliberate alignment with the audience most likely to recognise both Reynolds and Thomas while also being receptive to the Wrexham reference. The film medium was the only format for this campaign, making the 30-second spot bear the full weight of the narrative. That compression disciplines the creative — there is no ambient media or experiential layer to carry meaning that the film itself cannot. Maximum Effort's decision to tease Welsh-language chants for 2024 inside the spot itself extends the creative's effective lifespan beyond its November 2023 broadcast window, treating the advertisement as the opening chapter of a serialised story rather than a self-contained execution.
No independently verified broadcast performance data for The Other Rob, such as reach figures or sales-lift attribution, is publicly available at the time of writing. The campaign recorded 2,011 views and 34 likes on the platform where it was archived, figures that reflect a single distribution channel rather than the campaign's full audience across national television placements on FX and Hulu. The Drum covered the campaign at launch, indicating it generated trade press attention in both the United States and the United Kingdom consistent with Maximum Effort's broader reputation for producing culturally legible advertising.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several attributes that marketing effectiveness research consistently associates with memorability in the Alcoholic Drinks category. The use of a recognisable celebrity in an unexpected pairing, a narrative premise rooted in a verifiable real-world situation, and a compressed 30-second runtime with a built-in sequel tease all contribute to a format that is designed to generate conversation beyond the paid media buy. The Wrexham AFC connection gave both United States and United Kingdom media outlets a story to tell about the advertisement rather than simply a product claim to report.
The Clapboard Score for The Other Rob is 63 out of 100. That rating reflects a campaign with a clear, original creative idea and strong talent execution that stops short of exceptional because its cultural resonance is contingent on prior knowledge of the Reynolds-McElhenney Wrexham narrative — a reference that carries different weight for United Kingdom audiences already immersed in the story than for general United States viewers encountering it for the first time.
The Other Rob is a 30-second Aviation American Gin film released on 7 November 2023. Ryan Reynolds enlists Rob Thomas as a stand-in for an unavailable Rob McElhenney, who co-owns Wrexham AFC with Reynolds. The spot teases Welsh-language chants about Aviation Gin planned for 2024, running nationally on FX and Hulu across the United States and United Kingdom.
Oren Brimer directed The Other Rob for Loon Productions in partnership with Maximum Effort. The campaign was produced for Aviation American Gin and Aviation Gin, starring Ryan Reynolds and Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas, and aired nationally on FX and Hulu in the United States and United Kingdom in November 2023.
Rob McElhenney, who co-owns Wrexham AFC with Ryan Reynolds, was not legally permitted to appear in Aviation Gin commercials. Maximum Effort built the campaign's entire premise around that absence, substituting Grammy-winning Rob Thomas as the alternative Rob, as reported by The Drum following the spot's November 2023 debut.
Rob Thomas counts to four in Welsh — Un, Dau, Tri, Pedwar — inside the 30-second spot. The film also teases that full Welsh-language chants about Aviation Gin are coming in 2024, connecting the campaign to the Wrexham AFC ownership story shared by Reynolds and McElhenney in the United Kingdom and United States markets.
Maximum Effort created The Other Rob for Aviation American Gin. Ryan Reynolds and George Dewey co-founded Maximum Effort in 2018, according to Wikipedia. The agency produced the campaign through Loon Productions, with Oren Brimer directing the 30-second film that debuted on 7 November 2023 across FX and Hulu.
The Other Rob received a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The rating acknowledges a distinctive creative premise and strong talent pairing while noting that the campaign's cultural resonance depends on prior familiarity with the Reynolds and McElhenney Wrexham ownership story, a reference that lands differently across United States and United Kingdom audiences.
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