The Campaign

Matt Wright, now a household name in Australia and loved by groups of mates around the country became the face of the campaign. We created a TVC with Matt and his mates reconnecting in the great outdoors to promote the once in a lifetime opportunity to come along for an adventure on Matt’s ranch. The promotion gave a winner and 2 mates the chance to find their ‘True North’ and join Matt Wright on a 4-day experience. This included experiencing the Great Northern lifestyle through air-boating through the rainforest, heli-fishing for barramundi, deep-sea fishing and camping out under the stars. Matt’s ranch is about as remote as it gets, the wonder and awe of the location make this the perfect place to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We also gave away 4,000 exclusive Matt Wright shirts as instant win secondary prizes.

Creative Execution

The promotion hit organically with on-pack call for entries in early February. We needed to expand so we took Matt’s face from the carton and put him on screens around the country with a TVC encouraging Aussies to win a weekend away at his ranch for them and their mates. Local Australian Radio Stars Fitzy and Wippa, known for their down to earth rugged attitudes (nicknames are mandatory in Australia) spoke about the importance of ‘mates time’ away and encouraged Aussies to enter. Life sized cut outs of Matt Wright at point of sale helped drive consideration of the hero prize. The scale was immense. 12.6 million people were reached. For context, that is over half the Australian population. While 4.3 million were men from our target audience we reached women too as an active lifestyle is celebrated in Australia and women also love to reconnect in the great outdoors.

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

We had 65,000 entries which was 35,000 above our target. The redemption rate was a soaring 5% when our target was 2%. We saw an 8% volume uplift when our target was 5% Overall volume grew +87% vs the previous year. We sold 1.5 million specially marked promo cases and a total of over 2.6 million cases over the promo period. That’s over 60 million beers! The promo on social had a total of 2.8M impressions. 16,000 Aussies watched the content to the end. Dwell time on Facebook Canvas was 18 seconds, an eternity in an era when people scroll immediately. Positive sentiment was huge. We increased; +28% points for credibility + 14% points in brand appeal +14% points in intent to purchase We changed people’s attitudes with one fan summing up exactly what we aimed to achieve for the brand; “… a get together with your mates feeling”

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

The complete opposite to the typical big beer brand tendency to reward drinkers with hedonistic trips to Vegas or lavish nights out on the town we gave one group of Aussie mates a break from the bright lights with the perfect opportunity to reconnect in nature. In Australia’s great outdoors they’d be in the company of one of the nation’s most revered figures, Croc Wrangler and all round legend, Matt Wright.The True North promotion inspired Aussies to trade bar stools for the great outdoors and brought to life Great Northern Brewing Co’s positioning around spending quality time in nature.

Insight From time to time all Aussies need to escape and reconnect with themselves & their mates in the great outdoors. Strategy Inspire Aussie mates to help them find their own True North and deliver re-connection opportunities with mates in the great outdoors in a way that is always capable, grounded, humble, relaxed, honest, welcoming and with a cheeky spirit. These rugged Aussies would rather be out catching fish than hearing a bunch of clever catchphrases or marketing mumbo jumbo. We couldn’t just talk about it, we had to make it real. We needed to offer a money can’t buy opportunity for the winner and their mates to do the things they’ve always wanted but never had or taken the time to do before.