Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Ketel One Campaign Research

Exploring a wider alcohol market as part of a more holistic research process I turned away from Gin promotion and explored the marketing of Vodka to within a similar millennial demographic to gain an alternative perspective of how different brands engage this audience. Ketel One is a relatively new craft vodka to the market only being introduced into the UK in 2008. During the Taste London food Festival Ketel One created Two installations  with consumers invited to learn about the brand whilst making their own Bloody Mary’s under the guidance of Ketel One brand ambassadors as a means of developing a more extensive Brand Equity. 

Exploring this campaign within my dissertation I contacted the studio who created the campaign, Matthew Cooper of Love studio provided relative insight as to how this form of marketing is so successful with a millennial audience saying: 

Experiential campaigns allow for a more emotional connection with an audience, they also allow for personal engagement. Our target audience are looking for brands who can demonstrate substance and authenticity, a brand with a real story to tell. This is much more achievable in an experiential campaign than in print or other traditional comms campaign. An experiential campaign can help to build tangible experiences which our consumer can then share with others. If you build enough positive equity with the consumer in this moment, they can then become an advocate or evangelist for your brand.

This provides an invaluable conceptual insight to the brand psychology of Alcohol advertising and can be implemented within my response to the brief to ensure the brand fully engages with its intended audience. 

Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Hendrick's Campaign Research

Hendricks cleverly created a campaign to appeal to Hipsters, a notoriously difficult demographic to market due to their unsteroetypical conventions with regards to advertising and branding. This was developed as a series of live activations and aesthetic campaign touch points. 

In October 2015, a Hendrick pop up featured at the Cyclorama, a historic building in downtown Boston. Overnight Hendrick’s Gin created a magical world from scratch, inviting hundreds of Bostonians to experience, taste, and observe the alternative world of Hendricks Gin. At the event, you entered a curiosity shop where you could play with taxidermy, ancient magician’s manuals, and old photos that looked just a little bit odd. A shopkeeper in an elaborate, bustled dress took you through a secret passageway in the bookcases where you finally arrived at the party. There, something fun was happening in every corner: An in-house limerick writer was crafting poems on demand, a tightrope walker was tiptoeing on a row of Hendrick’s bottles, and everybody was tippling delicious old-fashioned cocktails. Hendrick’s strategically targets consumers based on psychographic qualities that relate to their attitudes and lifestyles, rather than demographics. The brand attracts drinkers who veer away from mainstream brands, are attracted to the exotic, have a knowledge of culture and history, and have a high disposable income. With this approach Hendrick’s has loyal drinkers from all age groups, but the vast majority of their consumers tends to be young city dwellers in their twenties and thirties. 

This campaign works particularly affectingly in creating an appropriate form of advertising for the Hipster demographic. Utilising an experiential campaign that feels had crafted for the user and is removable creates a significant investment within the brands equity. As  C.C. Chapman, marketing expert, quotes "Hipsters don’t respect money, they respect art," This is implemented within the campaign through its bold aesthetic to ensure audience engagement and reinforce the lack of mainstream qualities. 

https://uk.hendricksgin.com

Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Greenall's Campaign Research

In 2015 Greenall's increased its marketing presence to celebrate the brand’s ongoing sponsorship of The Jockey Club. The strategy features three horse race-themed bottle designs as part of the brand’s on-going ‘Good Times at the Races’ marketing campaign. 42,000 tickets were available to win through individual codes on the limited edition bottles, as a result of Greenall’s three-year sponsorship deal with The Jockey Club, which provided winners with entry to premium horse racing events. The marketing strategy works appropriately to celebrate the partnership with the Jockey Club and establish premium connotations utilising these existing racing stereotypes. 

The 'Greenall's Good Times' campaign was developed further into live activations  positioning Greenall's as the enabler of fun and 'Good Times' at the races. On site branding was supported by choreographed 'Pop moments' and a 10-piece 'Good Times Band' giving race goers the opportunity to win prizes such as a free round of drinks, a private bar party and even a new Mini Cooper. The results of the first activation at the Cheltenham Festival resulted in an increase of more than 378% increase in gin sales across the race course. The campaign has been so successful that Greenalls have commissioned a Good Times UK wide on-trade promotion to promote the Jockey Club partnership and hit a wider audience. 

Jockey Club Campaign 

Good Times Activation

Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Wider Gin Research

Looking beyond Greenall's I felt it would be appropriate to look at the wider marketplace of  Gin within the UK as this can inform later design processes and encompass an audience perception of the spirit. The UK’s “gin renaissance” has been under way for several years as tastes and drinking habits have changed. It is suggested that the decline of nightclub culture and the shift to eating out and early evening parties has inspired a craft industry of flavoured gins.Gin sales in the UK are expected to top £1bn for the first time this year as younger drinkers supplement their taste for vodka with an article from the Independent reporting More than two in five (42%) Brits aged 18 to 34 have drunk gin in the past 12 months, compared with 27% of over-45s.

Gin’s revival has led to an explosion of micro distilleries in the past few years, including Sipsmith and Sacred in London, that have brought boutique gins to market. This creates a sense of Gin Snobbery within the market with price, status and aesthetic all creating brand connotations that sticks with the consumer. These boutique gins begin to create a hierarchy based on how many botanicals are filtered within the spirit making lower end gins appear inferior. Greenall's stands proud as an everyday gin separating it from these high end boutique variants therefore this should be reflected within my response to the brief, not adhering to this gin snobbery but promoting its versatility for any occasion. 

Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Greenalls Research

Exploring the brand further I quickly established the basic information which gave a practical insight to the brands history being distilled in Warrington for over 250 years. The brand was founded in 1761 by Thomas Dakin, the brands original 'Master Distiller'. Still being produced in Warrington a largely industrial town brings pride to the North separating the brand from the poncey gin's of London, making it more engaging with a working class audience. In 2014 Quintessential Brands, Owner of Greenall's, gave the brand a design refresh to target young drinkers in the UK as a part of a wider push for the brand. The new bottle design features the signature of the brand's founder Thomas Dakin on the front, along with the Greenall’s family crest, in a bid to boost the brand's premium credentials. 

In a review from the Gin Foundry, an industry leading independent online resource, they praise Joanne Moore as one of the most talented distillers in the world, yet Greenall’s Gin does her almost no favours in showcasing her skill. stating the main problems with current brand engagement include its customer perception from 2013 onwards when the brands reduced its ABV to 37.5% proof which finished consumer perception making it feel cheaper and more diluted. They concluded "It’s unfortunately all too easy to now simply overlook Greenall’s Gin but don’t be fooled – there is a reason it has been around for over 250 years." This suggests it is currently aimed at a wider entry level market, not intended for special occasions or specialist Gin fans, more an everyday gin for an average working class audience. 

An interesting point of research identified is Greenall's partnership with the Jockey Club, the largest commercial organisation in British horseracing which stages many of the leading horseracing events in Britain, including The Cheltenham Festival, The Investec Derby at Epsom and The Crabbie's Grand National.  The sponsorship covers a three year period from January 2015 and includes exclusive Official Gin pouring and activation rights across all of their 15 racecourses, as well as a fully integrated marketing campaign, for Greenall’s Gin. As the Official Gin of The Jockey Club, Greenall’s Gin will have the potential to reach around 2 million customers per year at the 340 racing events The Jockey Club organises creating a strong potential for introducing the brand to a much larger audience including the briefs target audience of millennials.

Brief 2: YCN / GREENALLS - Brief Interpretation

Exploring the briefs in depth I chose to develop the Greenall's brief as my completion entry, this is partly due to being a Gin drinker myself creating an instant engagement and understanding of the product and marketplace. The key features that attracted me to the brief were that it is extremely experimental and open within its regard to deliverables allowing a great deal of creative freedom stating the brief is 'open to any medium' which appeals to my practice allowing a more experimental challenge. 

Analysing the brief in depth I initially highlighted all of the areas that hinted to what the brief was asking for within the resolution, this was an extremely worthwhile activity as pulling out these key words can later inform if I am truly answering the problems identified within the brief and reign myself back in if I wander off topic. The key elements pulled from the brief include the brand wants to promote itself as contemporary while not loosing touch with its extensively established sense of heritage with the use of British iconography instilling a sense of patriotism within the target audience. A millennial audience is specifically defined within the brief reinforcing the contemporary aesthetic that is also mentioned within the revitalisation of the brand image. The tone of voice is established as 'down to earth with a touch of irony' and reinforced stating it is a drink for everyday life. The brief hints they want the brand to thrive in 'Sociable drinking occasions' suggesting an event might sit well for this creative response, identifying the brand personality as 'vibrant' and 'fun' with a strict reinforcement of the brand identity in order to generate further brand equity with this new demographic. 

Brief 2: YCN - Intro

Exploring this years range of YCN briefs I was surprised how many initially appealed to an illustrative resolution, making it slightly more difficult to select the most appropriate brief to my practice. Having entered the competition last year unsuccessfully winning I looked back at last years response to the brief and established by resolution was too complicated in its concept, revolving around many individual elements that would have ultimately been very costly to implement on a live platform. From this I go into this years briefs with a refined clarity in the hope of creating a simple and effective concept to base my resolution from in order to appeal to the commercial judges yet appealing the same enthusiasm creatively to ensure this resolution is striking unique and most importantly an innovatively creative response to the brief.