Castle Lite celebrates its award-winning campaign in Tanzania
Castle Lite has celebrated the success of its award-winning 'Cold Tracker' campaign that was launched in Tanzania. The campaign's aim was to solve a business problem being that, on average, three out of five informal outlets in key African markets kept turning their fridges off to keep costs down. Conceptualising the campaign fell to Promise Agency.
"Castle Lite has always been about 'Extra Cold'; however, due to electricity costs, a lot of retailers were turning their fridges off," says Marc Watson, Promise Agency co-founder and executive creative director.
"This wasn't working for the brand, so we needed to incentivise outlets to keep fridges on and ensure that Castle Lite was cold," adds Watson.
Nic Kostouros, Promise Agency's integrated creative director, says that the 'Cold Tracker' concept was born out of collaboration between the agency and its client, as well as AB InBev's openness to flying the creatives into Tanzania to experience the vibrancy and challenges of the market first-hand.
"They were really happy with the campaign. It was a tightly-knit process in terms of how we worked together and we are fortunate that we don't have this weird client-agency relationship," says Kostouros. "We take their suggestions and we collaborate. It was an interesting dynamic."
Kostouros adds that the creative team benefitted greatly from seeing the retail outlets in action, witnessing the savviness they brought to their own marketing efforts and the differentiation taking place in this crowded market. Ultimately, the 'Cold Tracker' campaign saw a 26% increase in Castle Lite sales across Tanzania.
AB InBev compelled its retail partners to spend the extra on the electricity needed to run their cold fridges through the introduction of an adapted 3G device that could be fitted to the fridges and could monitor both temperature and location. The device was installed in 212 fridges in retail outlets around Tanzania.
Geolocated out-of-home leaderboards were installed which displayed (in real-time) which fridges in the immediate vicinity were offering the coldest Castle Lite. This created the world's first temperate-based media trading platform: cold beer and cold fridges in return for valuable marketing space.
In addition to the real-time digital billboard exposure, participating outlets were also highlighted in their local newspapers through paid-for Castle Lite advertising and targeted social media.
For those outlets offering the coldest beer, literage sales went up, at times to the tune of 70-80% more than competing outlets who turned off their fridges. Participating outlets saw an average 41% return on investment against cold fridge running costs, making cold fridges good for business.
"Had Promise Agency stuck unrelentingly to the initial advertising brief, this campaign would not have happened," says Kostouros. "It's hard to look past the brief, but you shouldn't let it get in the way."
"Look at the bigger picture and dive into each market with open eyes and a willingness to learn. Add to that an understanding of the evolving role of technology and how this can empower marketing and you have a winning combination," concludes Kostouros. "The client loved it as it vastly exceeded all expectations."
The campaign won the following occolades:
2020 Assegai Awards
Gold: Best Direct Marketing Cross Border Campaign
Gold: Use of New Technology, and
Silver: Direct Response Mass Media, Out of Home.
2020 Loerie Awards
Craft Gold: Out of Home, Use of Technology
Silver: Media Innovation, and
Silver: Out of Home, Outdoor Media.
The 2020 New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards
Silver: Best Use of Technical Innovation by an Agency, and
Bronze: Best Use of Technical Innovation
2020 Epica Awards (International)
Silver: Media Innovation, Traditional Media, and
Bronze: Creative Use of Data
For more information, visit www.castlelite.co.za. You can also follow Castle Lite on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.