2014 Silver Best Use of Mobile

Team Elaine Rea - Guinness Brand Manager On-Trade, Stephanie Sheehan - Senior Brand Manager Guinness, Anna Barrowclough - Senior Activity Manager, Ben Matthews - Senior Planner, Matt Elson - Account Director, Ross Britton - Senior Planner, Stephen Bradshaw - Senior Account Manager, Megan McGrath - Senior Account Manager, Triona O'Brien - Account Executive, Aaron McCarthy – Senior Art Director, James Binns - Copywriter, Stuart Morris – Digital Team Leader, Scott Gummerson – HTML Developer, Maurice Fullarton – Associate Creative Director, Frazer Howard – Creative Director

How did the campaign make a difference? Guinness research showed that customers feel their local pub is ‘made’ by them and their mates. And with great nights relying on spontaneity, the brand needed to be just a phone tap away to help customers round up their mates, share their location and raise awareness of the scheme.

The app delivered free pints and unforgettable experiences to create thousands of spontaneous evenings out – and higher engagement for the brand.

GuinnessPlus rewards have increased footfall to participating pubs by 15% over 11 months, achieved 212,000 downloads and over 140,000 registrants (92% new to the brand’s database).

One in three consumers who redeemed the rewards claimed they stayed in the pub longer and drank more Guinness.

Strategy Guinness’ mobile-first campaign blended an app, eCRM and SMS to get people (and their mates) onboard.

The app turned users’ phones into a digital wallet – delivering easyto- redeem free pints and regular money-can’t-buy incentives that kept the app on the front screen and Guinness front of mind. This app also gave the brand a simple way to capture and use rich data to create highly-personalised, triggered eCRM journeys.

Geo-locational elements and real-time updates encouraged spontaneity, drove excitement and brought people together in a way that was bang on brand.

An integrated campaign used a highly personalised mobile and tablet-optimised eCRM and SMS programme to incentivise download and make the app famous. Distinct customer journeys engaged people on special occasions, like their birthday.

Creativity The eCRM and app UX, design and content appealed to traditional Guinness drinkers and a newer, younger audience. The app used mobile features to do the basics brilliantly, then added extra creative investment to turn simple interactions into highly engaging brand experiences. The app was accessible to the less digitally-aware people in its core 45+ audience but also worked to attract 18-29 year olds – a key under-indexing audience.

The app used push notifications to announce a finite number of free pints available at participating pubs, whilst a countdown ‘clock’ created urgency using the famous Guinness surge to show how long people had to claim their pint. Inapp messaging let users contact their mates and find the nearest participating pubs. Redemption used a simple five-digit code. And check-ins were incentivized with the chance to win moneycan’t- buy group experiences.

Results The campaign generated 212,000 downloads and over 140,000 registrants (one every 3 minutes) and increased footfall to participating pubs by 15% – with a third of users staying in the pub longer, drinking more Guinness.

Usage is growing, too. From April to June, check-ins per registration increased 9.5% month on month and 61% of registrants used the app (versus 44% in the first 3 full months since the launch).

Two key groups were engaged: 18-29 year olds made up 36% of users and 22.6% of redemptions, while 50-59 year olds made up 11.5% and 18.4% (despite lower mobile penetration among that sector). Open rates hit 52% (average open rate for Western European Diageo brands is 29.9%). Personal birthday emails increased redemption 306%; SMS by 250%.

Crucially, 92% of app registrants are new to the brand’s database, fuelling future activity.