Giphy serves content to the world’s most popular online services. A presence on Giphy would make our content available for use in chats, comments and posts on services like Facebook, Apple Messages, Gmail, Snapchat, Tinder and many more.

Out of these, Tinder stood out to us. Not only because GIFs are popular on the platform, but because one of the most common ways to ask someone out is to get drinks.

With this in mind we looked for a way to differentiate ourselves on Giphy. That’s when we realised that none of ABSOLUT’s main competitors were present on the platform. Additionally, no one was making content that specifically said: “Let’s grab a drink!”, a message that fits ABSOLUT like vodka in a cocktail.

To further secure that we would stand out we put a strong emphasis on High-Quality finish which further helped us differentiate ourselves on the platform.

Witty, funny, relevant and unexpected are the key values that drive our creative forward. By keeping up with services that implement GIPHY and trending tags on the platform we were able to create relevant content for our audiences and the ABSOLUT brand as a whole.

With stop-motion we were able to find a style that resonated deeply with our audience while letting us stand out of the crowd. For most of our content, what happened in the camera, is what you see in the GIF. Additionally, by prioritising a high-quality finish, we were further able to visually differentiate ourselves on Giphy.

The 1.5MB file size restriction coupled with our obsession towards high quality finish led to us only being able to use 5-10 frames per asset. While challenging at times this drove us to be wittier and more concise in the way we told our stories.

780 000 000 + views

250 + gifs produced and optimised for all of ABSOLUTs media channels

+60% engagement rates in eCRM

+16% purchase intent after viewing our GIFs

The Absolut branded GIFs drove significant increases across lower funnel metrics relative to comparison display advertising

On average, 96% of respondents correctly recalled the Absolut brand from their content experience, compared to just 79% exposed to display advertising.

By creating the ABSOLUT VODKA Giphy channel, we more than exceeded our initial objectives and expectations. The ABSOLUT VODKA Giphy channel represents a new opportunity for the brand to reach and delight audiences while giving GIF-users that perfect GIF to send for the next time they ask someone out for drinks. Skål!

The ABSOLUT VODKA - Never Gonna GIF You Up project was started as a means to inject the ABSOLUT brand into our target audiences’ online conversations by giving them a way to say: “Let’s grab a drink!” using GIFs. The Giphy platform as a new media channel for ABSOLUT allows us to do this without having to rely on intrusive ads. Instead, our content is shared from person to person, rather than brand to person.

Inject the ABSOLUT brand into the online conversations of GIF-users who want to get drinks.

The GIPHY platform allows ABSOLUTs target audiences to communicate using GIFs in a number of popular services such as Tinder, Gmail, Slack, Apple Messages, Facebook and many more.

By establishing the ABSOLUT VODKA channel on GIPHY, our content would be able to reach users of all these services.

However, the GIPHY platform is swamped with content screaming for our audience’s attention.

To succeed with our objectives we needed to create content would stand out visually from the rest, while communicating messages relevant enough to get them to choose our GIFs over their favourite character from TV saying: “How you doin?”

On top of this, to optimise the content for use in all of ABSOLUT’s online media channels we chose to restrict file sizes to 1,5 MB per asset.

This is the story of how we got 780 000 000 organic views using wit, stop motion and a lot of vodka.

As you may have noticed, people use GIFs like crazy. Giphy, the world’s largest GIF platform serves 2 000 000 000 gifs to users on a daily basis and Tinder reports that users who start conversations using GIFs have a 30% higher reply rate than those who don’t.

The way these GIFs are used poses an exciting opportunity for brands as they’re shared as a form of self-expression from one person to another. If a brand could create GIFs relevant enough for a certain audience, they could effectively inject the brand into their target audiences’ online conversations without having to rely on intrusive ads.

Brief and Objectives:

Establish the ABSOLUT VODKA Giphy channel with animated GIFs to ask each other out for drinks.