Top drinks marketing campaigns and news: May

London brewery Beavertown held an event last month to encourage more people to sign up as blood donors by giving away free pints of its Bloody ’Ell Blood Orange IPA.

Beavertown gave away its fruity beer to the first 500 people who visited its taproom from 2pm on 25 May if they had signed up to be a blood donor.

At the start of the year, the NHS Blood & Transplant Service issued an appeal for more male donors. According to figures published in January, twice as many women gave blood in England than men in 2018. The organisation said that 13,719 women who registered last January became blood donors, compared with only 6,092 men.

Men are more likely to have blood that can be used for products like platelets and allogeneic serum owing to the fact their blood contains fewer antibodies against red and white blood cells.

Beavertown hopes that its campaign will encourage more men to sign up.