Wild Turkey's Man of the Moment
Award Category
Beverages
Agency
Match Media
Client
Campari Group
Objectives
A decline had hit total bourbon sales and Wild Turkey wanted to build on its successful sports sponsorship of the previous year. It needed to maintain its trajectory, grow its platform and unique sport promotions, and improve its performance metrics. It had an NRL-driven campaign, which had introduced the successful ‘Bird Up/Step Up’ tagline, but these elements lacked interactivity and a grassroots element. Wild Turkey was after a campaign that celebrated and rewarded the practical and everyday consumer.
Campaign
Match Media came up with ‘Man of the Moment’, which rolled out in three stages. The first was inspiring through sports legends and the agency partnered with the Triple M radio network, which got its listeners inspired to ‘bird up’. On-air content was created with Triple M’s sporting legends – Tim Horan, Mark Gasnier and Jason Dunstall – who recalled a moment in their careers when they had stepped up. These stories were also brought to life by Fox Sports, which created a TV and online content component. Within Facebook interactive posts were created to ‘bird up’ conversations with fans and polls ran to choose ‘bird up’ stories in history and news. The public were urged through on-air and online media channels to get involved and nominate their friends. They were then asked to vote for their favourites, with a microsite and Facebook used to track entries and voting. Wrap-up content on the winner and finalists was created for sharing via social media and on-air.
Results
The campaign passed its targets, with 478 men nominated against a KPI of 160. Close to 4000 votes were received and click-through engagement KPIs for the video content were beaten by 500%. Wild Turkey cemented its position as the most liked alcohol brand in Australia in 2012, with 308,000 fans. Before the campaign sales were declining 7%, but after it sales grew 29% in a declining market. All of Wild Turkey’s quality, premium and ‘step up’ brand perception metrics improved impressively compared with its competitors.
Judges Comments
Clever link of a man-dominated product to a Man of the Moment theme. Media bang on, with a smart link to sporting identities clearly exceeding the sales goals with a reduced year-on-year budget in a declining market.
