In 2014 Fuller's London Pride ale created a social media UK first. As part of the Made of London campaign we created the Twitter initiative #EmptyPint refill. There were multiple objectives but the most important three were: 1. Drive relevance with a younger ale drinking audience, 2. Grow our Twitter following, 3. Demonstrate generosity towards London.
Based on our iconic Made of London poster featuring an empty pint, we offered Londoners a free refill of London Pride if they tweeted an image of their own empty pint, including the #EmptyPint hashtag in the tweet, to @London_Pride. The tweets were identified and responded to in real time with each user directly receiving a unique code to redeem a pint of London Pride in the Fuller's managed estate.
The campaign ran for one month. The social seeding and outreach was supported in key locations with bespoke outdoor posters adapted from our iconic empty pint advertising. This integrated activity joined up three of the brand's key channels; outdoor advertising, social media and the pub estate.
The campaign was responsible for over 1000 new Twitter followers and saw a 8,700% increase in impressions. In total 525 codes were sent out, with a redemption rate of 54% across 94 Fuller's pubs in London. In addition to sparking social media conversation about London Pride, growing the social audience and encourage pub visits, it also created a bank of User Generated Content for future use.
For the last two years London Pride ale has been supported with the 'Made of London' campaign, designed to engage a younger ale drinker as it champions London and the people who live and drink here.
These younger ale drinkers are more fickle in their choices than traditional ale drinkers and actively enjoy experimenting and trying new things. They seek out brands they feel are authentic and interesting. To them London Pride is familiar, old fashioned and a bit boring. They've grown up seeing it everywhere and some mistakenly believe it is part of a big corporate brewery group. On this basis it doesn't represent an interesting or authentic choice and while they will happily drink it if it's the only thing on offer they don't actively seek it out or make it their first choice.
Unsurprisingly this audience are also technologically aware smartphone users who are likely to be checking social media channels frequently, including at the pub and when they wait in the queue at the bar.
We wanted to build on the Made of London campaign and drive relevance with this younger audience, using a social channel they use frequently in an unexpected, innovative and interesting way.
In addition to this we wanted an idea to deliver on the following criteria:
Drive awareness of the London Pride Twitter channel.
Grow the London Pride Twitter audience to expand brand reach and profile.
Demonstrate a generosity of spirit towards London which is part of the Made of London strategy.
Encourage trial of London Pride.
Increase footfall to Fuller's pubs.
Deliver a social first for London Pride.
This was no small task. We first identified Twitter as the channel we wanted to use then we set about thinking of a way to engage people.
The Made of London campaign is famous for its image of an iconic shot of an empty pint set against a London skyline. We had already seen consumers copying this and tweeting images of their empty pints of London Pride. So, we decided to capitalise on this existing behaviour and incentives it with an act of generosity.
#EmptyPint was born.
For one month only, if you tweeted an image of an empty pint including the #EmptyPint hashtag in the tweet to @London_Pride you could redeem a free refill for you empty pint. These tweets were identified and responded to in real time with each applicant receiving directly a unique code to redeem a pint of London Pride (or a soft drink) in the Fuller's estate. This was geo targeted to Greater London.
In addition to social seeding the campaign was supported in key locations with bespoke outdoor posters adapted from our iconic empty pint advertising. This joined up three of the brands key channels; outdoor advertising, social media and the pub estate.
Did it work?
We recruited over 1000 new twitter followers and saw a 8,700% increase in impressions.
In total 525 codes were sent out, with a 54% redemption rate across 94 Fuller's pubs across London.
In addition to sparking social conversation about London Pride, growing the social audience and encourage pub visits, it also created a bank of User Generated Content for future use.
And, most importantly London had a pint on London Pride.
