ARCHIVEFirestone Walker Bets on Female Trailblazers to Redefine 805 Beer
Firestone Walker's Properly Chill is a film campaign released in the United States in March 2024 that celebrates female athletes and artists as the living embodiment of 805 Beer's identity, positioning the brand around authenticity, independence, and creative spirit through the stories of real women who live outside conventional paths.
Anchored in Paso Robles, California, where 805 Beer is brewed, the campaign centres on a cohort the brand calls its Authenticos. These are women who define the trailblazer spirit that Firestone Walker has long associated with the Central Coast lifestyle. X Games gold medalist and professional freerider Vicki Golden, MMA fighter Tabatha Ricci, and singer-songwriter Jade Jackson lead the roster. Joining them, as reported by The Drum, are Anya Violet and Ashmore Ellis, founders of the motorcycle community Babes Ride Out, and explorer Gillian Larson. Each subject embodies the brand's stated ethos that 805 residents live on a different path, are born to create, and are built to inspire.
The campaign film was published on YouTube on March 4, 2024, with the broader campaign launch reported by trade press on March 8, 2024, timed deliberately around International Women's Day. Described by Firestone Walker's Chief Marketing Officer Dustin Hinz, as cited by The Drum, as the company's largest holistic brand effort to date, Properly Chill represents a meaningful escalation of the established 805 Beer platform rather than a departure from it. The campaign extends across digital channels, inviting audiences to engage via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter under the hashtags #805beer and #properlychill, directing consumers to the official 805beer.com site for further engagement and purchase options. In the United States, where craft beer competes intensely for consumer identity, Firestone Walker's decision to frame 805 Beer not merely as a product but as an emblem of a bold, community-rooted lifestyle reflects a clear understanding of where authentic brand meaning is built. Clapboard scores this campaign 57 out of 100.
ARCHIVEFirestone Walker built the Properly Chill strategy on an existing and well-established platform. The 805 Beer identity has long drawn on Central Coast authenticity, outdoor culture, individuality, and a trailblazer personality. As documented by Clapboard, the 2024 campaign continued and expanded that platform rather than resetting it, placing female athletes, artists, and creators at its centre and broadening the campaign from a single execution into a multi-subject narrative format.
The strategic rationale is rooted in cultural alignment. By selecting women who operate at the margins of mainstream sport and music — professional freeriding, mixed martial arts, and independent singer-songwriter careers — Firestone Walker signals that 805 Beer belongs to those who pursue a different path on their own terms. This positioning directly distinguishes the brand from the volume-driven mass market. In the United States, North America accounts for a significant share of global beer revenue, according to Grand View Research, and the competitive landscape is dominated by Anheuser-Busch InBev, whose portfolio includes Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, and Corona, and Molson Coors, both of which command considerably larger marketing budgets. Against these competitors, Firestone Walker's decision to invest in specific, named individuals rather than archetypes or broad lifestyle imagery is a deliberate act of differentiation. The campaign's timing around International Women's Day, as reported by The Drum, adds cultural resonance without reducing the women featured to a single-occasion statement. Dustin Hinz, as cited in an interview on The Current Podcast by Simplecast, noted that the Properly Chill slogan had been part of the 805 Beer brand for some years before the 2024 campaign gave it its most expansive expression. The campaign's integrated structure — film, social media, and direct-to-consumer digital touchpoints — reflects a media approach calibrated for a craft beer audience that values substance and story over reach alone.
The Properly Chill film is directed by Juan Cabral. The production team assembled for this campaign represents a depth of craft that matches the ambition of the creative concept. Cinematography is handled by Leandro Filloy, with production design by Carlos Umaña, both of whom contribute to the film's distinctive visual texture. The campaign's most technically unusual element is its incorporation of stop-motion animation sequences, with Juan Pablo Zaramella credited as lead stop-motion animator, as documented by LinkedIn and The Drum. This choice distinguishes the film from the live-action documentary register that dominates beer advertising and introduces a handmade, artisanal quality that reinforces the Authenticos' ethos of creative independence.
Editing is shared between Emiliano Fardaus and Luciano Sosa, who shape the pacing across the film's multiple subjects, balancing the different worlds of motorcycle riding, mixed martial arts, and independent music without flattening their distinctions. Visual effects are handled by VFX studio ROJO, with sound design by Tres Sonido and post-production overseen by Julieta Fernández Castagnino. The combined effect is a film that moves with energy but retains a considered, unhurried quality consistent with the Properly Chill tone. The medium-film format allows each of the featured women — Vicki Golden, Tabatha Ricci, Jade Jackson, and their fellow Authenticos — sufficient screen presence to register as individuals rather than symbols. The production avoids the inspirational-reel conventions common to sports and lifestyle advertising in the United States, favouring specificity of character over generic aspiration. The agency behind the campaign has not been publicly disclosed. As reported by Muse by Clios, the campaign forms part of Firestone Walker's broader 2024 brand investment, and the production values reflect the campaign's status as the brand's most ambitious effort to date.
No independently verified performance data — including view counts, reach figures, sales uplift, or paid media metrics — for the Properly Chill campaign is publicly available at the time of writing. The campaign's YouTube publication on March 4, 2024, as confirmed by YouTube, establishes its market entry point, but platform-level engagement figures have not been disclosed by Firestone Walker or cited in trade reporting.
Structurally, the campaign carries meaningful effectiveness indicators. The decision to name and profile specific individuals — Vicki Golden, Tabatha Ricci, and Jade Jackson — rather than use anonymous lifestyle talent gives the campaign earned-media potential that generic beer advertising does not generate. Each Authentico brings an existing community and a searchable public identity, extending the campaign's reach beyond paid placement. The integrated hashtag strategy using #805beer and #properlychill, combined with direction to the official 805beer.com, creates a measurable conversion pathway that campaign-only executions typically lack. As described by The Drum and confirmed by Clapboard's editorial assessment, the framing of Properly Chill as Firestone Walker's largest holistic brand effort to date suggests internal investment at a level commensurate with genuine market ambition. In the United States craft beer segment, where brand loyalty is built through cultural credibility rather than volume spend, campaigns that generate authentic community alignment tend to outperform reach-based metrics over time. Against larger competitors including Anheuser-Busch InBev, Firestone Walker's use of a named creative director and a technically distinctive production approach represents a strategic choice to earn attention rather than buy it. Clapboard scores Properly Chill 57 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's strong conceptual foundation and production craft against a backdrop of limited measurable outcome data.
Properly Chill is a film campaign launched by Firestone Walker for its 805 Beer brand in the United States in March 2024. The campaign celebrates female athletes and artists branded as Authenticos, including Vicki Golden, Tabatha Ricci, and Jade Jackson, positioning 805 Beer as a symbol of authentic independence and creative spirit.
The Authenticos are female trailblazers central to the Properly Chill campaign. They include X Games gold medalist and freerider Vicki Golden, MMA fighter Tabatha Ricci, singer-songwriter Jade Jackson, Babes Ride Out founders Anya Violet and Ashmore Ellis, and explorer Gillian Larson, as reported by The Drum.
Juan Cabral directed the Properly Chill film for Firestone Walker's 805 Beer. The production team also included cinematographer Leandro Filloy, stop-motion animator Juan Pablo Zaramella, editors Emiliano Fardaus and Luciano Sosa, and VFX studio ROJO, as documented by LinkedIn and The Drum.
Firestone Walker published the Properly Chill film on YouTube on March 4, 2024, with the broader campaign launch reported by trade press on March 8, 2024. The timing around International Women's Day was deliberate, amplifying the campaign's focus on female athletes, artists, and creators in the United States market.
Properly Chill is described as Firestone Walker's largest holistic brand effort to date, according to The Drum. It expanded the established 805 Beer platform by placing named female athletes and artists at its centre, incorporating stop-motion animation, and deploying an integrated digital strategy across social media and the official 805beer.com website.
Clapboard scores Properly Chill 57 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong conceptual foundation, notable production craft including stop-motion animation directed by Juan Cabral, and its culturally resonant focus on female trailblazers, balanced against the absence of publicly available performance metrics for the United States market.
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