Smirnoff

BACKGROUND///

Diageo-owned Smirnoff launched "Welcome to the Fun%," a new campaign that features a diverse cast of celebrities who highlight the vodka brand's affordability and accessibility for everyone.

It became clear that engaging with conversations about mixing cocktails represented Smirnoff’s best hope to gain more market share in the highly competitive spirits market. If the brand could get customers to share recipes based on its products with their friends via social, it could reinvigorate interest in some of its core flavors and beyond. A one-off campaign featuring generic cocktails wouldn’t work. Instead, Smirnoff and 72andSunny needed to monitor those trending topics and produce a steady stream of cocktail ideas that would always feel "of the moment." The idea? World famous drag queen and Smirnoff Ambassador Allyssa Edwards shows us how to sashay as her favorite Smirnoff cocktail.

The digital campaign was supported by gifs to make the fun% fierce and shareable.

The result? While the rest of the category dipped, Smirnoff’s flavored business reversed its performance, outpacing the category by 9.5%. That increase provided enough of a lift to return Smirnoff’s entire US business to sales growth. The recipe videos and blitz of images resulted in industry-leading social metrics. Audience engagement exceeded all spirits-industry norms, indicating that the social activity was responsible for driving sales. Smirnoff continued to sashay away the competition for the rest of the year.