The Brief

The media environment is more cluttered than ever. In football is the most sponsored sport in Australia. Because of this, Bundaberg was finding it hard to speak to young men in the arena of football. Their brief was to raise Bundy’s awareness among young men in the context of football. The objective of the campaign was to form a bond between Bundaberg Rum, young men, and football. The audience was drawn from young men who are Bundy drinkers, and who haven’t tried Bundy. Bundaberg’s strategy is to support the supporters of rugby league—to give something back to the fans.

Creative Execution

Footy Dreams was relevant to Bundaberg because Bundaberg could not cut through the chaos of sponsored football, and Footy Dreams enabled them to completely sidestep all known media channels and become the only brand that exists in people’s dreams—a vault of virgin media. This is something that no brand, in any arena, has ever done before. And because Footy Dreams gave young men content they loved, and let them dream about the thing they love (football), it formed an exceptionally strong bond between them and Bundaberg in the arena of football.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our idea was to go where no media exists, so we went to men’s dreams—a vault of virgin media. To access this unchartered space we created Footy Dreams—a series of branded podcasts to be listened to as men fell sleep. We recorded football’s most entertaining stories, and turned them into podcasts. An informercial drove men to itunes, the app store, and a micro-site. They downloaded the dream-casts, listened to them on their ipod while they fell asleep, and dreamed of football heroism and Bundaberg Rum. The desired outcome for Bundaberg was to be considered a brand connected to football.

Results

Footy Dreams infiltrated the dreams of 53,000 young men. The series gave Bundaberg Rum access to over $1,000,000 of untapped virgin media, every single night. During the time Footy Dreams ran, Bundaberg’s overall sales increased by 6%. The response of the audience was outstanding—they shared about their new dreams on facebook and twitter, youtube and tumblr. By letting young men become football stars in their dreams (something they hadn’t done since boyhood) Bundaberg tapped into something deep within their audience, formed a very meaningful bond with them, and made Bundaberg the most-loved alcohol brand in the football arena.