2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Guinness as a brand has a great and unique heritage. Its association with St. Patrick's Day is ancient and global. Outside of the usual hats and T-shirts, how can we take an already captive audience, engage them in a unique and intellectual way using St Patrick’s Day as the catalyst yet leaving a legacy that builds both brand awareness and loyalty.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

We decided to look beyond the usual and see how we could unite the proud history of Guinness, the environment in which it's consumed and it’s modern 'social media type' audience. In the world of apps and social networking we realised even back in 1759 when a consumer downloaded (ordered) a pint of Guinness and logged into a social networking environment (went to the pub), conversations would happen, friends would be made and stories shared. So we believe that Guinness was one of the first social networking apps, in fact our Brand Adventure® became 'Social networking since 1759'.We decided to look beyond the usual and see how we could unite the proud history of Guinness, the environment in which it's consumed and it’s modern 'social media type' audience. In the world of apps and social networking we realised even back in 1759 when a consumer downloaded (ordered) a pint of Guinness and logged into a social networking environment (went to the pub), conversations would happen, friends would be made and stories shared. So we believe that Guinness was one of the first social networking apps, in fact our Brand Adventure® became 'Social networking since 1759'.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

Superb POSM which really communicated the key messages effectively. Over 3000 promotional prizes were given away to consumers over the period and 1000+ networking moments were captured in one evening. In the Irish Village alone nearly 7000 pints of Guinness were sold over the 3 day period which was a 4% volume increase versus the same period last year. The overall activation with the consumer promotion, promotional staff, Guinness hat installation, Stage branding and visuals secured fantastic visibility for Guinness within the leading venue for Guinness in the Middle East.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The promotion was first party encouraging network orders, e.g buy 6 pints get a party bag for your table. The audience was invited into a unique Guinness PhotoHat to capture the moment. We introduced the world largest beer mat which encouraged consumers to 'Go on join a network'. Singular beer mats could be joined to this central hub to form bigger networks. Our T-shirts shouted Less twitter more banter, Please invade MySpace and We Get Friends Reunited, both supporting the social media revolution but reminding our audience that face to face communication is more fun - especially with Guinness