Raise a Glass for Father’s Day
The campaign that grabbed our attention most at Marketing Week Live 2013 was without doubt Diageo’s Father’s Day campaign for Johnnie Walker. Kathy Parker, Senior Vice President of Marketing Innovation at Diageo presentation “Brand Building in the 21st Century – The Changing Rules of Engagement” had a great integrated campaign case study.
First up, like all good campaigns, they used some relevant, key insights as a basis:
- Kids spend around 30% less on dads for Father’s Day than they spend on their mums for Mother’s Day
- Sons in particular find it hard to show their appreciation
Johnnie Walker set about making Father’s Day special in Brazil by inserting a unique code on each bottle enabling sons and daughters to record their very own video message (using Diageo’s scan technology) telling dad why he is special.
Led by celebrity endorsements on social media, sales went through the roof. “We didn’t really need to buy too much media to capture interest,” explained Kathy.
Diageo showed a cracking ROI, boosted by the fact that their technology showed that sentimental dads kept checking back to view the video, no doubt enjoying a tipple or two! To borrow a line from another famous Diageo brand – pure genius.
