The Brief

The media environment is more cluttered than ever before. In Australia, football is the most highly sponsored sport—and is dominated by Bundaberg Rum’s competitors, like Jim Beam and beer. Because of this, Bundaberg was finding it hard to cut through the chaos and speak to young men in the arena of football. The objective of the campaign was to raise Bundy’s awareness among young men in the context of football, and to form a strong bond between Bundaberg Rum, young men, and football.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

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

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

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

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.