Appleton Estate Rum, a subsidiary of J. Wary & Nephew Limited, is one of the oldest rum producers in Jamaica, USA. They have long history of more than 265 years and a heritage of crafting one of the finest rums in “the Heart of Jamaica”. Over these years, Appleton Estate has developed unique distillation and blending methods to producer rums of exceptional quality. In 2012, J. Wary & Nephew was acquired by Gruppo Campari, the 6th largest spirit manufacturer in the global beverage industry.
Business Goals:
Appleton Estate hired the Archer Group, a social media marketing agency, for three main reasons:
- To increase the brand awareness in US
- To increase page likes and fans engagement on Facebook.
- They also looking for email subscribers to built a relationship with them through newsletter subscriptions.
The Archer Group, to achieve above goals, focused totally on company’s Facebook Page. They ran Facebook Ads campaign for 4 weeks from 6th September 2011 to 7th October 2011. This Ad campaign had targeted football and spirits fans, especially those who had great memories of vacation in Jamaica.
Facebook Campaign Strategy:
Going by the nature of Social Media, it is extremely important to showcase a brand’s voice and personality. But for Appleton Estate this was not the case, here one had to create a brand and drive fans onto the Facebook page by engaging with them. To achieve this, Appleton used targeted promotion to build audience.
To attract more fans and to increase their engagement with the brand, they developed a strategy to target football fans who were also interested in spirits like rum, vodka, scotch, bourbon, etc. Since, it was National Football League (NFL) season 2011; this campaign has given them the required boost.
They started with a campaign named “Be a Better Host” – a Facebook page sweepstake or contest (It is a way to engage with Facebook fans and convert them into email signups by attracting them with a prize). This contest was focused on running a football themed contest and then offered prizes with a random draw. Since, it was a football season; content was created around it to attract NFL fans, specifically teams and shows associated with NFL. To increase the frequency of fans engagement, content and prizes were updated weekly.
Now to generate traffic to the campaign, they used Facebook Ads. These ads were in line with the campaign offering prizes on liking the page and taking part in “Be a Better Host” contest. There targeting strategy included:
- Due to the football season, they targeted the fans who liked NFL teams or associated shows like Monday Night Football, NFL Live, etc.
- Also, they used demographic targeting with key interests in spirits, whether it is a liquor type or specific premium liquor brands.
- After doing above mentioned audience segmentation, they created 14 Ad variants. These variants were used against these segments for better fans engagement.
- The performance of these ads were reviewed and optimized daily, so that they can take advantage of top performing ads.
This users’ demographic and interests targeting have enabled Appleton to reach the most relevant audience. Apart from this, Facebook’s performance metrics helped in gauging the performance of these ads. This performance analysis gave them an opportunity to try out different ads every week and to see which works best and gives them desired ROI. “Our targeting strategy was two fold – users in our target age demographic who showed an interest in spirits or the NFL. For spirits, we targeted users who showed an interest in spirits in general like rum, vodka, scotch, bourbon, etc. and also users who are interested in specific premium liquor brands like Grey Goose, Patron, Macallan, etc. For targeting NFL fans, we targeted to specific teams or shows associated with the NFL like Monday Night Football, NFL Live, etc.” — Justin Silva, Social Marketing Director, The Archer Group.
Facebook Ads Campaign Result:
Facebook advertisement had given the required boost which was necessary to create brand awareness in their niche. The given below was output after 4 weeks:
- Targeting the right audience resulted into 40% increase in subscribers added to newsletter database.
- The “Be a Better Host” sweepstakes had attracted 6,700 entrants.
- 91% of the clicks on these ads became connections.
- During this 4-weeks campaign had attracted more than 20,000 new fans which was a 285% increase.
- Also, football themed content and prizes have led 115% increase in fan engagement per post.
Greg Levine, Brand Manager, Appleton Estate Rum had also quoted that “Facebook has provided us with a place to not only spread awareness of the brand in a fun and exciting new way, but also has been a great tool to allow us to communicate back and forth with the Appleton Estate consumer”
The Archer Group is an award-winning digital marketing and technology agency handling some big clients like Morgan Stanley, TimeWarner, Sungard, U.S. Vision, etc. Headquarter is based in Welmington, Delaware.
Image Sources: Socialfresh.com and Appletonestate.com, getcaughtmedia
