The Brief

Slurpee has always been a different kind of drink. It lets people pour, mix and fill their cup any way they like. But in 2011 more and more copycat competitors entered the Australian frozen drink market. This included an aggressive advertising push from Coca-cola that threatened the Slurpee brand’s number one position. We needed to engage our drinkers and give them a reason to stay loyal to Slurpee. We needed to make ourselves different again.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

We changed the one thing no one had ever thought to change before – the cup. And ‘Bring Your Own’ Day was born. For one day anyone could bring in anything they liked to fill with Slurpee. We seeded the idea prior to the event on facebook by asking 150,000 of our closest friends one question, “If you could fill up any cup with Slurpee what would it be?”. It wasn’t long before they started seeing potential cups everywhere. The best suggestions formed an instore, outdoor and print campaign, further inspiring people’s creativity in the lead up to the day.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

For one day we gave Australians total creative control over our product, and they responded by filling almost 100,000 ‘cups’. That’s nearly 500,000 litres of Slurpee. The highest Slurpee sales in history were recorded, making it the most successful promotion to date. Achieving a 270% increase in unit sales for the same day the previous year. Sales have consistently increased month upon month following the promotion, cementing the brand’s position as Australia’s favourite frozen drink. And more user-generated content was created in one day, than in the brand’s history.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Slurpee is extremely experimental in nature. Drinkers have the freedom to pour and mix their individual flavour concoctions. So engaging them with a tactile interactive promotional event seemed like the ideal way for the brand to behave. Instead of passive one-way communication we gave consumers total creative control over the product. They always had the freedom to choose the flavour, the mixture and the size, now they could also choose what they drank out of. In essence we would remind consumers why they fell in love with Slurpee in the first place – the unique and personal hands-on experience.