Bushmills, a small brand of Irish Whiskey, faced a challenge: how could it grab its share of the increasingly-fashionable and rapidly-growing Irish Whiskey market, against intense competition?

The 18-34 year-old male consumer fuelling growth was notoriously hard to reach. Research revealed that indie music was a passion point for them, but we knew authenticity was key to attracting purchase, and we had to create a meaningful way for them to interact with the whiskey. Enter the Bushmills Distillery. With centuries of whiskey-making heritage,this is whiskey Disneyland.

The idea: bring whiskey and music together and put consumers at the heart. We launched Bushmills Live – a global indie music festival, with major artists playing to 700 people in the intimate surrounds of the spectacular distillery.

Activated across 14 countries, this global campaign incorporated an artist-ambassador programme; digital seeding of exclusive acoustic performances; a series of Bushmills Live satellite events around the world; a media relations programme that took advantage of newsflow; in-store POS displays; the establishment of a legacy fund to support new music talent; the creation of the world’s largest whiskey headphones and of course, the two-day festival.

+3,000 articles appeared across 40 countries, with 98% positive sentiment and 98% key message penetration. Bushmills’ social media grew +26%.

Global sales of Bushmills grew +10% in 2014, with Bushmills Live the sole marketing activity throughout this period. Double-digit sales growth was recorded in every country where Bushmills Live was leveraged, including +42% in Russia, +56% in Poland and +125% in Germany.

We launched Bushmills Live just before St. Patrick’s Day, when media were looking for a credible ‘Irish’ story. Tickets couldn’t be bought; they were given away via social and media activations - they quickly became the hottest tickets in town.

In the event run-up 51 satellite events were held around the world; artists announced their involvement and gave away spot tickets to fuel buzz; we partnered with Spotify to deliver branded content; POS rolled out across markets and PR coverage was delivered through attention-grabbing stunts such as the world’s largest headphones, built at the distillery.

Bushmills came to life to host the festival in June welcoming ticket-holders from the world over, alongside +60 media including GQ, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post and Yahoo!.

Afterwards we released exclusive artist performances filmed in the distillery to coincide with album releases and collaborated with Snow Patrol to establish a fund for aspiring musicians.

We aimed to deliver media coverage in 14 countries – +3,000 articles appeared across 40 countries, with 98% positive sentiment and 98% key message penetration.

Bushmills’ social media following grew +26% (vs +20% target); positive post interaction grew +35% and we achieved an average of 5% social media post engagement.

#BushmillsLive was trending on two separate occasions; 55,000 people entered to win tickets and video content has been viewed more than 5million times to date.

More importantly, this small brand with a small budget achieved growth in the face of big competition. Global sales of Bushmills grew +10% in 2014, allowing the brand to exceed its target despite budget cuts - with Bushmills Live the sole marketing activity throughout this period.

Double-digit sales-growth of Bushmills was recorded in every country fully activating Bushmills Live, including +42% in Russia, +56% in Poland and +125% in Germany.