From Glenlivet to Goonlivet

2 years of reimagining The Glenlivet: from the gogglebox to a whisky box

The Australian Glenlivet campaign is a turbo-charged reinvention of an historic single malt.  In just 18 months, we’ve brought our ‘Obey the Rules. Miss the fun’ campaign to life from screens to shelves showing just how fertile it is. Here’s a taster of what we’ve been up to and why.
 

A much-needed makeover for a storied single malt
The world of single malt whisky conjures up images of Scottish heaths, dark dens, leather armchairs and wise, beardy, drinkers.  The ads tend to ram that home with wistful gazes over hazy heaths with the odd stag lobbed in, for added Scottishness.  And then there’s the books: a mere 30,000 of them dictating how whisky should (and shouldn’t) be enjoyed.

As one of the most storied single malts, The Glenlivet is often seen as embodying this leathery, beardy, peaty, rule-bound world.

Our local client wanted to shatter this stereotype and entice a new generation -  and gender – of drinkers whilst expanding usage occasions away from contemplative evenings sipping it straight.   

A campaign free of beards, bogs, bagpipes and bullshit

Our strategy took aim at the tradition-bound world of whisky, shattering its pomposity and insularity.  We laughed in the face of the prevailing wisdom that said this was a man’s drink, best drunk unadulterated and pure. Our ‘Obey The Rules. Miss the Fun’ platform takes aim at convention and turns assumptions and associations on their head. 

Set in a vibrant 1960’s style home, genre-bending Anna Paquin proceeds to have a crack at the cocky (in every sense) whisky traditionalists. Everything from maleness to mixing gets a makeover as we show that you can ‘livet’ any which way you want to.

Make it a double…..:  Scotchsplaining

We haven’t shied away from taking the campaign beyond the screen.  When the Australia Club mansplained their way to maintaining male membership, we launched Scotchsplaining (a guide to modern drinking) to play off this unwelcome commitment to the status quo.

….A triple, with a twist:  The Goonlivet.

The Goonlivet is our latest offering: a new format that takes the brand into the world of hill’s hoists and away from hilly heaths. Yes, it coincided with April Fool’s Day, but it’s yet more evidence that The Glenlivet shatters stereotypes.

We had little more than a month to design and deliver. We created 20 prototypes before producing the final, gold-tapped version, then launched the Goonlivet with its own 3D animated, super premium video.  Meanwhile, we forged a partnership with The Whisky Club and Maybe Sammy, complete with bartender interview, and created a new landing page and an EDM that was sent to our entire database.  Breathless stuff.

In little over 18 months, we’ve created a fertile campaign idea that’s lived everywhere from screens to shelves, reimagining a time-honoured classic for a new whisky world order.

Results

Here’s a breezy cocktail of results for our ‘Obey the Rules. Miss the Fun’ campaign:

Commercial results: Number One with a bullet

We knocked ‘The Stag’, (Glenfiddich) off the number one sales spot for the first time in a decade.

Brand Results: Considerable consideration increases

Consideration rose for both males and females post campaign with 6% and 9% increases respectively, demonstrating that the campaign has motivated both audiences.

We’re actually quite proud of the fact that 44% of male respondents said the ad was irritating, suggesting we’d done our job of motivating modern drinkers, whilst annoying the traditionalists.

Campaign results:

Salience: Remarkably good

The Anna Paquin campaign was seen as the ‘Most Remarkable’ Pernod Ricard Spirits execution by consumers over the last 2 years, almost double the next contender in our portfolio.

Our Facebook brand lift study saw a 5% increase in ad awareness from 10-15%.

Brand perceptions: Particularly female-friendly

Amongst our key new audience of females, we saw significant lifts in important brand perception measures:

Is a stylish brand: up 23%

Is a brand that fits with modern culture: up 17%

Is a brand for people like me: up 18%

Is a cool brand: up 11%

Is a fun brand: up 14%

Whilst the modernity message came out loud and proud, hearteningly this wasn’t to the detriment of taste, quality or history measures:

Is a brand that has strong tradition and heritage: up 24%

Is made with care and expertise: up 25%

Is a brand which has superior taste: up 22%

(Source: MetrixLab tracker)

Reach: Eyeballs aplenty

Our social and PR reach has also been impressive, over-delivering against target

Obey the Rules. Miss the Fun main campaign

34.5M impressions on socials across ANZ (+25% more than planned)

Delivered 58% above Pernod Benchmarks for cost-per-engagement

Performed 148% above Anna’s average organic post engagement

16.6M combined PR reach (editorial, digital social)

Scotchsplaining

986k impressions on socials across ANZ (+1600% more than planned)

The Goonlivet: Whisky in a box

The response has been phenomenal with a slew of positive coverage from Buzzfeed to Bosshunting, yet again proving you can’t keep a good (rule-breaking) thing down.

PR reach of 14+M

Social reach of 576k 

The reaction to The Goonlivet from the Whisky Club shows that we were winning admirers even whilst ruffling a few traditionalist feathers:

@Mr_t_mills: ‘This could be the greatest invention in modern history.’

@MattAlchin: ‘Half of me says ‘NO!’ The other half says ‘I need that.’

@MelissaBrimelow: It would be UnAustralian not to purchase it.

@Rode5621 and @lagomorph were slightly less impressed: ‘What a fall to sewer juice for a once highly rated whisky’ said the former, whilst @lagomorph signed off with  ‘This won’t do. This won’t do at all.’

You’re welcome, fellas.