Great Northern is Australia's largest beer brand, by volume. Despite its scale it has a relatively low brand resonance, so aims to move beyond ATL comms to drive deeper engagement with drinkers. This campaign used on-traditional media & activation channels to deliver a brand experience to tackle said brand resonance issue.

Great Northern believe in connecting people in the great outdoors, so our brief was to inspire men and women aged 35+ to reconnect with themselves and others in the Australian outdoors using non-traditional media and activation channels.

In doing so, we needed to attract new drinkers to the brand, while building brand equity and address the ‘brand power’ v brand scale imbalance that Great Northern Brewing Co. Faced.

For most Australians, the love of the great outdoors was inspired by our dads.

However, for many of our progressive drinkers, the bond formed with their fathers has weakened as the pressures and distances of life take over.

We proposed that Great Northern inject true meaning into Father’s Day by encouraging drinkers and their fathers to rekindle the bonds forged outdoors, inspiring them to spend time, not money, with their dads this Father’s Day

To achieve this, we created ‘The Great ReCamp’, a movement for Australians to take their dads camping again for Father’s Day.

The brand is built around connections forged and hospitality felt in the great outdoors. However, for many, it remains little more than the beer from North Queensland – a great drop on a hot day. Great Northern sought to change that perception.

We set out to reconnect men and women aged 35+ with themselves, others and the world around them by bringing the idea of hospitality to life in non-traditional media and activation channels.

In doing so we discovered that, for many of our target drinkers, life pressures have weakened the bond they have with their fathers, one so often connected with our first experiences of the great outdoors.

In addition, the day we celebrate our dad’s, Father’s Day, has become more about retail than connection.

The campaign started with a powerful piece of online content delivered across social channels that followed the real-life story of a father and son as they went outdoors again for the first time in 18 years.

Social targeting for the content pushed our audiences to a website where people could book a camping experience.

Partnering with Aircamp (campsite aggregator), we created a database of over 7000 campsites across Australia, populated by user descriptions, photos and reviews. This data enabled us to design a geo-booking and invitation-engine that let people create their own personalised Father’s Day invites tailored around fishing, camping or getting off the beaten track.

Social and digital was integrated with PR using research (supported by a relationship expert) to show the power of the outdoors in reconnecting with loved ones.

Increased sales 5% for the period and increased awareness by 4%.

In year one, over 1000 sons & daughters invited their fathers to go camping again.

PR -

43m reach (target +72%), including placement in 2 of Australia's 3 morning TV shows and its biggest online news site and newspaper

· 94 hits (target +17%)

· 92% retention of 2 or more key messages (target +12%)

· 87% CTA – editorial including link to campaign

Content

· 491,854 minutes of content watched

· 98% positive user sentiment on video content

· 1m+ total video views

Social

· 20 pieces of content

· Over 166,876 in organic reach

· 13,299,806 total impressions

· 654,806 engagements

· $44,716.76 total spend