The Campaign

Insight: Singaporeans are ‘Pangseh’ kings Through a survey, we discovered that the biggest reason Singaporeans don’t go out in large groups is because their friends keep cancelling on them (commonly called ‘pangseh’) Research revealed pangseh is the #1 barrier to making social plans. This insight could potentially resonate with Singaporean beer drinkers and help overcome the barrier to attending the event. THE ACTIVATION IDEA St. Pat’s Pledge – a pledge designed especially for Singaporean party-goers. We leveraged a culturally relevant insight (don’t pangseh), to create a challenge to the party-goers and beer drinkers of Singapore. The St. Pat’s Pledge – a promise not to cancel on your friends and to actually show up for the Guinness St. Patrick's Festival event in 2018. In return, the pledge-taker is entitled to cancel on any one future social event in the year!

Creative Execution

We got the nation talking, with prime time open talk on OneFM with a teaser campaign where Flying Dutchman & Glenn Ong asked people to share the worst excuses they’ve heard from friends. Best ‘worst excuses’ won Guinness hampers. Influencers got in on the action, ‘ambushing’ their pals most guilty of always bailing. The videos spread like wild fire. Out-of-home bus stop panels near pubs brought them to try a pint of Guinness at bars nearby. And ads in newspapers were bought on nights when they were most likely to drink. Social media chimed in with engaging posts around the excuses, leading people to take the St. Pat’s Pledge. Targeted digital banner ads got more people to pledge and attend. All this culminated in a big brand experience at the event with "I showed up" photo booths, a wall to write "worst excuses", "No excuses T-shirts", pledge tattoos and more.

The highest attended Guinness event in Singapore ever! Attendee footfall doubled in March 2018 (34,000 VS. 17,000 in March 2017) with same media budget. Objective: Instigate trial & sales +10.7% total volume sales (VS. 2017) +39% volume sales in take-home channels (March 2017 sales had surpassed 2016 & 2015) This volume was driven at -70% the cost of sampling in 2017. We gave away 3,125 free Guinness pints, VS. 2017 where we gave away 10,000 pints for half the footfall Objective: Encourage brand engagement 3,749,077 impressions and 972,532 unique reach across social posts, with cost per reach = $0.02. (2x cost-effective VS. 2017, which was $0.04) 335,713 engagements, with overall engagement rate of 8.95 in 2018. (80% higher than 2017 and 2.5x the industry average) Objective: Improve brand image & appeal ‘Leading International Brand’ 38% to 46% (+8) ‘Sociable brand’ 26% to 36% (+10) ‘Instantly Recognizable’ 41% to 51% (+10)

Guinness is much more than just a pint. It’s a drink built on experience. Of bringing people together in communion - to enjoy friendship, kinship and good ‘olde Irish craic’. Our campaign needed to live up to this experience. At every interaction, the spirit of Guinness needed to be felt; we needed to create an infectious momentum amongst Singaporeans to get them to attend the ultimate expression of Guinness – the St. Patrick’s Festival.

To change people’s minds about Guinness through mass trial, activated by getting large groups of Singaporeans to attend SPF. “I can change your mind if I can get you to try it.” Research showed that we could change people’s minds about Guinness as a drink of choice, if we could get them to try the beer. So we looked to the brand’s biggest annual event as an opportunity to drive sampling. St. Patrick’s Day – An Irish Festival, celebrated everywhere in the world St. Patrick’s Day is a global event that has become synonymous with Guinness. It is the biggest marketing campaign of the year for Guinness, and in Singapore, the event accounts for 50% of the annual marketing budget. It was our opportunity to drive mass product trial, but we needed Singaporeans to attend the event – not just the same expat crowd that attends every year.