Interaction just the tonic for high spirited campaign

Campaign overview

2005’s ‘Get sponsored by Coruba’ proved that an interactive approach to this category and audience was more powerful than a conventional one. It showed that consumers who became actively involved were more likely to tell friends and act on messages. The ‘Host the Coruba Gold $50,000 Launch Party’ extended these principles, providing consumers with the opportunity to engineer the launch event, constrained only by a $50,000 budget and a brief to stay true to the brand.

Generating 4.8 million website hits, the campaign website was at the time the second most visited website in the food and beverage category. But much more than just visitation, the campaign increased Coruba’s marketing database by 41 percent. A Silver award winner for Lead Generation in the 2006 NZ Post RSVP Awards, the difference between simple interest and participation came down to the campaign’s interactive marketing platform.

Objectives

The dark rum category had been in sad spirits, showing a gradual decline. And history showed the ineffectiveness of brand advertising to arrest the decline. The campaign aimed to resurrect brand health, spurring higher levels of consumer involvement and leaving a lasting brand impression. Specifically:

• Create in-depth audience involvement with brand Coruba
• Increase database by 30%
• Increase Availables* from 18% to 22%
• Decrease Rejecters* from 25% to 20%

*  Lion Nathan use TNS 4A’s brand analysis based on percentage breakdown of Brand Adorers, Adopters, Acceptors, Availables and Rejecters.  Brand health improvements tend to start at bottom end of the scale (Availables/Rejecters) then move up (Adopters/Adorers) over time.

Target Audience

18-24 year-olds – emerging drinkers; male skew.

Channels

• Web
• Email
• Text
• Peer-to-peer networking and self-perpetuating communities

Strategy

In 2004 a Coruba Brand Cause was developed. Since then Coruba has been dedicated to ‘helping make great home parties happen’. The launch of new Coruba Gold was deemed an event worth celebrating and prefixed the new campaign. 2005’s ‘Get Sponsored by Coruba’ proved that an interactive approach was more powerful than a conventional one and showed that consumers who became actively involved were more likely to tell friends and act on messages. Clearly, then, Coruba’s future marketing success in large part would be determined by the growth of a receptive online database.

Coruba Gold Launch Party advertising and database emails directed people to the website, where they submitted an overview of their concepts and invited friends. ‘Guests’ rated friends’ concepts and added suggestions of their own.

Each party concept had its own microsite and self-perpetuating community.  With minor agency intervention, wide-ranging interaction included email feedback, comments, ratings, acceptances/declines and constant updating of ideas. Establishing communities within communities was break-through in that it enabled different audiences to get deeply involved, growing the database exponentially.

After six weeks judges culled the top 200 ideas down to ten.  These were then placed on the site, where the entire database was invited to rate them and a winner was selected. At the campaign’s end more than 20,000 people were voluntarily receiving direct messages about the event and Coruba Gold and happy to receive future contact.

How Touchpoint helped

Touchpoint technology supported multichannel communications and interaction, including text and email registration functions; email communication for the entire campaign; member access and guest invitation functionality. Specific Touchpoint modules used included:

• Database
• Email
• Mobile
• Site Manager
• Portal behaviour tracking
• Dashboard management of database and campaign delivery

Campaign results

• 4.8 million hits on campaign specific website
• Nearly 1,400 ‘hosts’ setup launch party ideas and invited others
• Close to 9,000 ‘guests’ got involved
• Second most visited website in food and beverage category for July
• Database increased by 41% during campaign period
• Coruba now has a database of brand enthusiasts agreeable to future communication
• Silver award winner for Lead Generation in the 2006 NZ Post RSVP Awards