In summer 2016, Leicester City were defying expectations and challenging the status quo as they played their way to the Premiership title. Led by their inspirational captain, Wes Morgan, they were bringing something new to the Premiership party and embedding themselves at the heart of conversations across the nation.

This behavior brought to mind another inspirational Captain. In fact, another highly regarded, but perhaps not so front-of-mind Captain Morgan. This campaign would only be successful if we could make genuinely plausible parallels between the Captain Morgan brand and Leicester City’s own amazing leader. Our campaign messaging was therefore close – but just noticeably different from – our standard brand messaging. Using Wes Morgan’s face on our bottle, adding a football and Leicester’s colours; all of these tweaks to our messaging were original enough to be clearly and recognizably Diageo’s Captain Morgan, but incongruous enough to obviously be Leicester’s Captain ‘Wes’ Morgan.

Stage 1: Twitter conversation

Within 60 seconds of Leicester becoming champions, Captain Morgan tweeted Captain (Wes) Morgan to congratulate him and Leicester on their incredible achievement. Stating today there was #onlyonecaptainmorgan and providing a mock-up of a Captain ‘Wes’ Morgan bottle, the conversation became a viral sensation. This celebration was further amplified by a full re-brand of Captain Morgan social media.

Stage 2: National Press

Tactical ads congratulating Captain Wes and heroing the bottle design across national titles.

Stage 3: Influencer engagement

Limited edition bottles sent to key influencers in sporting and celebrity worlds to further amplify the conversation whilst driving desire for the bottle.

Stage 4: National Competition

Competition to win 1 of 50 Limited Edition bottles. Launched across social media, re-igniting the conversation.

Stage 5: Regional Product Exclusive

11,000 Limited Edition Bottles sent to stores in Leicester, ensuring Leicester fans could own a piece of Captain Morgan history.

Awareness:

62 pieces of coverage, including 11 national pieces (Mail Online, Mirror Online, Metro Online, Daily Star, Daily Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Record.

575,000 engagements across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube - including Wes Morgan himself.

Feature on other online portals, including ITV News and Yahoo Sports

Estimated actual viewed reach of +50 million

Total PR value of £1.26m

Editorial coverage across TV (BT Sport Football Show)

Conversion:

11,000 bottles sold in Leicester

Greater than 250% uplift in all participating stores across the 4 week period compared to the previous year

Delivered with only 5% paid media investment