As title sponsor of the Guinness 9-Ball Tour, Guinness needed to own Pool. The target: males 25-34 years-old, in 3 key markets – Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Unfortunately, these guys perceived both Pool and Guinness as old and unexciting.

Furthermore, they spend a lot of time online, but their fragmented media consumption and short attention spans make it difficult to get their attention. How could Guinness and Pool be made young again – in look, feel and action – for this notoriously fickle target?

Guinness engaged with the target on their turf: the online social environment of Instant Messaging (IM) – a key social platform. Guinness embedded a real-time, peer-to-peer interactive pool game in Windows Live Messenger.

For the first time, Instant Messaging was fully integrated into a digital ad campaign. Banners and email featured the iconic Windows Live Messenger symbol, strengthening the idea of playing pool while chatting. A live leader board and micro site kept players engaged. Campaign innovations included instant click-through from banner to game.With this campaign, the lines between the medium, message and audience are perhaps forever blurred.

The results exceeded client expectations on many fronts. The campaign achieved:(a) 35% penetration of the target audience.(b) An average 22.9 minutes of interaction for every US$1 spent.(c) 358,708 games played by 220,984 unique players.(d) 15,000+ registrations which exceeded the client’s target by 50%.(e) Consumer responses in the blogosphere showed high affinity with the Guinness brand.

This campaign achieved over 1.8 million minutes of interaction with the target audience, for only US$84,300 in media cost. Cost per recruit to Guinness database at US$5.24 was 288% lower than forecast, a new benchmark for Guinness acquisition.