Winning ingredients: unwrapping the secrets of Guinness, Alpro, UberEats & Dramamine award success

Blending creativity with data and tech for customized comms

Vistar Media scooped gold in the Media OOH category for its ‘Brewery of Meteorology’ work for Guinness. Judges praised its use of “creativity with OOH tech, data and new measurement capabilities” in the campaign which aimed to get Australians drinking more Guinness in Winter. And it worked: consumption volume grew by 13% YOY.

To persuade punters to enjoy a pint during cold weather spells, Vistar Media ran a weather-triggered DOOH campaign that activated across small format screens in greater metro areas, when the weather was cold to very cold, within 1km of pubs serving Guinness. Based around a ‘perfect weather for a Guinness’ creative, passersby could scan a QR code on the board for a free pint. Ongoing measurement was also key to success: exposure to the DOOH placement and visits to target destinations was monitored during and after the campaign.

Using data to serve up personalized product suggestions

Danone’s plant-based dairy brand Alpro similarly used retail media and addressable data to make personalized product recommendations to its audience, resulting in an 18% uplift in new-to-brand penetration – and Gold in the Retail Media category of The Drum’s Retail Awards.

Working with Wavemaker UK, Tesco Media, Nectar, Alpro’s ‘Champion of Flavour’ campaign used consumers’ food preference data to suggest one of 200 flavour pairings, each directing consumers to shop with their favorite retailers. Across video on demand (VOD), social media and Tesco’s scan-as-you-shop handsets, customized recommendations included suggesting Alpro’s barista range to coffee lovers or pairing nutty almond milk with Crunchy Nut Cornflakes for cereal fans.  

Ongoing testing also meant that Alpro was able to optimize the campaign’s impact on sales.

Hard-working, interactive creativity for stand-out billboards

Meanwhile, in the Alight Media-sponsored Advertising Awards, Rethink bagged Gold in the Billboard category for its UberEats Horror Codes campaign. All thanks to its methodical creative approach which became the envy of the judges who admitted it was “an all-round complete package where a few of us wished we'd done it.”

So, how did it serve up success? Largely by taking a more creative approach to the standard Hallowe’en retailer promo code.

To stand out during the competitive calendar date, UberEats secured the IP to 10 leading horror films and turned their most famous quotes - from The Sixth Sense’s “I see dead people” to SAW’s “Do you want to play a game?” – into candy promo codes. To build engagement and momentum in the run up to Halloween, consumers were challenged to fill in the missing letters of a daily quote, to unlock a 60% discount.

The campaign delivered a 65% boost in users’ grocery basket size and retail basket size, with judges praising “the effort that goes into bringing those older classic horror posters back to life.”

‘Effective, creative and authentic’ gets gold in the bag

Last, but definitely not least, what can FCB Chicago’s Grand Prix and multi-award-winning campaign for US anti-nausea brand Dramamine tell marketers about how to carry off gold?

Based around the insight that Dramamine is so effective at preventing nausea that it ended the need for sick – or, barf – bags, the brand paid tribute to the very thing it killed in a light-hearted ‘The Last Barf Bag’ documentary. The 12-minute film showcased the eccentric subculture of air sickness bags, profiling collectors and tracing how barf bags’ usage has fallen off as Dramamine has become more popular.

The campaign’s creative irreverence was underpinned with a commercial acuity, including the launch of an e-commerce platform selling the old barf bags and the reminder to consumers across every touchpoint that when nausea strikes, Dramamine is the answer. Not surprisingly, judges praised it as a “very unique example of strategy and planning, with outstanding execution across several mediums.”

To take a bite out of more winning work, visit The Drum Awards now