Hunter's Dlis-mas Blessings promotion

Client: Heineken Beverages 

Campaign: Hunter's Dlis-mas Blessings

Objective: Heineken Beverages wanted a big summer brand campaign (peak brand window) that would drive sales through the November and December peak period. Specifically, it wanted to drive incremental volume growth of Hunter's products (peak 2021 vs peak 2022; maintain the positive momentum of its brand health scores (i.e. brand funnel, brand attributes and brand equity); and land its new 'Refresh the rules' brand proposition among the key target market.

Channels: This was a massive, omnichannel campaign featuring gamification using USSD and microsite platforms - both conceptualised and implemented by FoneWorx. These customer engagement points were supported by POS, radio, social media, and an internal campaign.

Mechanics: The campaign hinged around a truly South African Father Christmas called Fartha Dlis-mas who delivered gifts such as cash, gaming consoles, clothing vouchers,  Hunter's Gold and Hunter's Dry to competition entrants. His sled was a hunter green BMW 325is, which set the tone for the quirky creative across the campaign.

The total prize bounty was R800 000, which consumers could tap into via the various competition entry points. The gamification execution was highly successful, as it had an age gate, and collected and confirmed unique entry codes, mobile numbers and POPIA opt-ins. It also made provision for full data capture forms.

Results: This was Heineken Beverages' most successful opt-in campaign to date. It yielded 89 383 interactions (49 670 from the microsite and 39 713 from the USSD platform). Of this, 20 474 were unique interactions. Full form data was collected for the 15 543 opt-ins received, while 66 156 valid unique codes were entered into the competition.

One of the campaign objectives was to attract greater numbers of Gen Z consumers to the Hunter's world by capturing their attention and convincing them to buy more Hunter's products. The campaign managed to do both.

The volume growth objective was achieved, with volume increasing significantly during the campaign compared to the same period the previous year.

Positive momentum on all brand health scores was maintained. Aided and unaided awareness increased and remained steady during the campaign period, while reach and engagement peaked in December, the busiest time for this category and amidst stiff competition from many external factors. The conversion rate for trial/regular usage increased, showing just how much the campaign resonated with new users.

In addition, scores for the brand attributes, 'keeping up with the times' and 'is refreshing' increased during the campaign, demonstrating its relevance among the core target audience.

Another major objective for Heineken Beverages was to land the new Hunter's brand positioning, 'Refresh the rules'. The big idea was that summer had been refreshed through Hunter's products. Based on the KPIs recorded for the campaign period, the client was satisfied that this objective had been achieved.

Overall, sentiment and engagement rates were well above target, proving that the campaign was 'culturally relevant' for the festive season and the brand, still incredibly relevant to the youth.