ALL HAIL PATRICKS

Short List
TitleALL HAIL PATRICKS
BrandASIA PACIFIC BREWERIES
Product / ServiceGUINNESS
CategoryG03. Single Market Campaign
EntrantIRIS SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Idea Creation IRIS SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Media Placement RED STAR Singapore, SINGAPORE
PR IRIS SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE
Production TAPROD Bangkok, THAILAND
Production 2 SUNSHINE NATION Singapore, SINGAPORE

Credits

Name Company Position
Ed Cheong Iris Executive Creative Director
Shuyau Cheng Iris Creative Director
Racquel Narciso Iris Senior Copywriter
Uni Lee Iris Senior Art Director
Yasee Poh Iris Senior Designer
Thihan Cho Iris Digital Designer
Joice Lee Iris Visual Designer
Shaiy Daquiz Iris Visual Designer
Tenny Ker Iris Head of Integrated Production
Cheryl Koh Iris Integrated Producer
Jenni Stiebel Iris Senior Producer
Luke Pidgeon Iris Producer
Pamella Ang Iris Senior Editor
Natalie Hellon Iris Business Director
Jaidev Subaiah Iris Account Director
Noreen Tjindra Iris Senior Account Manager
Mark Hadfield Iris Regional Planning Head
Farah Azizan Iris PR Director
Leah Eser Iris PR Director
Deanna Bonaparte Iris PR Associate
Su'an Guo Iris PR Associate
Nina Ikhwan Iris Senior Social Media Manager
Martin Tan Iris Senior Community Manager

Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

Although expats celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, Singaporeans don’t see a relevant reason to celebrate, and the brand loses out on valuable volume. In 2019 we confronted the SPD challenge head-on: If Singaporeans don’t know St. Patrick, let’s celebrate all the Patricks they do know. Instead of celebrating an irrelevant mythical figure, we set up tailored brand experiences for Singaporeans islandwide that celebrated all the local Pats in town.

Background

Guinness Singapore have annually activated SPD, but in recent years volume has plateaued. Whilst expats use it as an excuse to over-indulge, every year the brand sells about the same amount of Guinness to the same expat audience. In order to grow their volume from the SPD opportunity, we decided we needed to target Singaporeans and get them to drink Guinness. By drinking Guinness not only would we grow our volumes incrementally, we would also get them to trial the product for future benefit. But this was no easy feat. That’s because there is no link between Singaporeans and Ireland, or to St. Patrick himself. Our challenge was just that: Find a relevant link between Singaporeans and St. Patrick’s Day to drive incremental volume from locals via a series of brand experiences.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

For St Patrick's Day in Singapore, Guinness turned every local Patrick into a saint. For mass outreach, we created promotional perks all in the name of local Patricks. Subsequently through LinkedIn we hunted and singled out all the Pats based here in Singapore. From Patricks to Patricias to Patrines, we targeted our new Saints and made them feel special by creating pop-up Guinness bars where they worked. Exclusive gift packs were sent out to them, surprising them with invites to the festival.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

In a small relevance-driven market like Singapore, we needed to change the conversation from a global message of celebrating St. Patrick, into a more locally relevant message. With no link between Singaporeans and St. Patrick, we found a link between Singaporeans and local Pats. We worked with LinkedIn and found 6,788 Patricks, Patricias and other Pats to celebrate those living in Singapore. That’s not every Pat but it gave us a base to aim for via targeted digital and retargeted video content to invite to our brand experiences. We identified some famous Pats to target too, to create PR-able amplification that spread into popular culture. And because we’re an inclusive brand in an inclusive nation, we backed it all up with mainstream media to spread a wider message inviting all non-Pats to help us celebrate they all Pats they know. 2019 was to be the year Singaporeans All Hailed Pats!

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

The first thing we decided was that we needed to create different kinds of SPD events compared to previous years. One big event where Singaporeans could All Hail Pats, supported by smaller on-trade activations. We used all activity to drive traffic to our events during the month prior. Our lucky Pats were asked to sign up for the events, and we encouraged non-Pat Singaporeans to sign up for the event too with a trial-driving promotion in local bars. By capturing all email and mobile numbers, we kept in constant contact throughout the time before the event, giving them teasers and benefits to keep the brand front of mind. At the brand events, whilst Singaporeans do drink, it’s usually as an accompaniment to food with family. So our events were more family-oriented with multiple food stalls.

List the results (30% of vote)

Singapore sits 152nd on the WHO list of alcohol consumption per capita meaning Singaporeans aren’t huge drinkers. Plus, the fact it’s 30 degrees most days, and Guinness has a perception of being thick and heavy, it underlines just how tough a job it was growing our overall volume by getting locals to drink. But we smashed it. BUSINESS: Year on year 6% increase in Guinness Draught volumes sales per outlet, and 12% increase islandwide. MARKETING: Over 10,000 people signed up to the main event, a 50% increase from last year, with 80% of eventual attendees being Singaporeans. On-trade activations followed the same pattern with 2.6x more pints redeemed. COMMS: Our targeting of famous Pats reached over 17m people in earned media (in a population of 5.5m people), meaning it was impossible for Singaporeans to escape the fact Guinness was hailing all Pats!

Please tell us how you designed/adapted your campaign for the single country / region / market where it aired.

Singapore is unique: only 5.5m people that has carved its own path as a global success story in its short 54yr history. Singapore’s diverse population sits at the heart of this success, and Singaporeans themselves are incredibly proud of their multi-cultural and inclusive society. But it’s also a market where relevance is essential. Because Singapore has forged its own path, there is a tendency for Singaporeans to question anything that isn’t Singapore-first in its approach. Which is a big issue when you’re trying to celebrate an Irish saint, with an Irish brand, with thousands of expats. Hence we knew the way to crack the brief wasn’t trying to manufacture a reason for them to celebrate the outsider of St. Patrick, but to instead find something relevant for them to celebrate that was as Singaporean as possible. And it turns out there are a lot of Pats in Singapore...