XXXX Gold’s Prawns Outback is an exceptional example of a powerful entertaining event created to launch a campaign of experiences to reverse consumer perceptions during a period of serious decline. It delivered both mass targeted reach and awareness through earned media, but importantly began the process of rapid reputational repair for XXXX Gold. The Prawns Outback event gave a deeply positive experience to those in rural Australia and the influence of the campaign delivered a stunning heartfelt message to the rest of Australia allowing more than 1 in 3 Aussies to witness the XXXX Golds story.
Australia is defined by its unique way of life - there is nothing we love more than spending time with friends and family under the Australian sun, or as XXXX Gold like to call it Take in the gold.
But Australia’s number one beer brand is in decline and brand image is to blame.
Objective: XXXX Gold is on a mission to change its dated, blokey appearance after losing market share to new entrants. A leading indicator of these sales declines was a steady drop in the research question ‘A beer for people like me’. It was our task to arrest the rapid decline.
Brief: Appeal to today’s modern drinker by inspiring them to get together with loved ones, experience more during the best moments in life and create gold memories. That’s what XXXX GOLD offers – the opportunity to savour every great moment.
No matter where in the world Christmas is celebrated it’s traditionally a period spent with family, friends and good food. The Brits have their turkey. The Japanese have KFC and there’s nothing more Australian on a sunny Christmas day than fresh king prawns.
Eromanga is the Australian town furthest from the sea, situated 1,061km from the ocean – that’s over 12 hours drive! We collected half a ton of fresh prawns from Queensland coast and journeyed to Eromanga in a specially repurposed XXXX Gold chilled delivery truck.
Having never had fresh prawns in Eromanga we caused quite a stir. The local Mayor brought the community together to raise a toast to the year. The authentic story was captured in all its raw glory and shared with new stations. The story spread like wild fire as the nation fell in love with the heartfelt generous gesture from a brand at Christmas.
In order to reclaim the mantel as ‘A beer for people like me’ with our core drinkers we needed to reconnect with our down to earth family oriented audience who loves the simple pleasures in life. Anchored in their community our audience are more suburban and regional than city dewelers with a strong sense of identity.
This is an element we took to heart. Why do all the marketing dollars get splashed on the urbanites. This time we changed the tables to show generosity to those in the remotest of communities. By connecting with these people, we hoped to reconnect with XXXX Gold drinkers everywhere, ultimately change perceptions of this is a beer for me.
But telling them to enjoy the good life isn’t good enough. We needed to demonstrate it. Our actions created memories for the locals and captured News channels hunting for a Christmas feel good story.
We delivered the surprise of half-a-ton of fresh prawns from the Queensland coast to Eromanga just days before Christmas. The refrigerated truck made the 2-day journey, stopping in Chinchilla, Roma and Quilpie sharing the XXXX Gold Prawns along the way. At each stop we rolled out the longest tables and enjoyed community dinners - distributing over 150kgs of fresh prawns in each town.
When the XXXX Gold Truck rolled into Eromanga it was to a waiting crowd of 60 locals – not bad for a town with only 40 residents!
With the production and PR teams on the road, we were able to deliver our heartfelt story in 24 hours going live across all major news channels and XXXX Gold owned channels on Christmas Eve. The event in rural Australia delivered a positive PR campaign with more than 1 in 3 Aussies witnessing XXXX Golds story.
The Results
Prawns Outback created over 275 pieces of earned editorial content across broadcast, print and online with a reach of over 8.5million beer drinking Aussies. The national news stations broadcast our initiative as we spread Christmas cheer.
The ship is turning, with research showing results ‘XXXX Gold is a brand for people like me’ not just stopping its decline, but actually climbing 30% after the stunt, their highest brand result on record.
Our story changed opinions of what XXXX Gold values and gave rural Aussies a chance to experience the generosity of a brand who knows them.
The results not only blew the clients socks off, but did something far more important. We galvanised remote communities who hadn’t come together in years. With jobs drying up faster than the red dirt around them, we delivered prawns and optimism. For that alone, we slept a little more peacefully on 24th December.
Companies
Octagon
- Events
