Bundaberg Rum’s The Wedding That Fans Built offered fans on social media the chance to be involved in the first-ever wedding ceremony held at the brand’s distillery. For two lucky rum lovers, this meant getting married by us for free. And for the remaining 400,000 fans of Bundy’s Facebook and Instagram community, it was an opportunity to plan every part of one couple’s big day. The brands social media communities were able to submit ideas and vote on all aspects of the ceremony, which were then brought to life in what is undoubtedly the most “Bundy” wedding ever.

Bundaberg Rum is one of the most loved brands in Australia. In fact, our fans are willing to go to great lengths to show us just how much they love us. They collect our merchandise, pimp out their cars and houses with our logo, and tattoo our bottles onto their bodies. But how far would they go to prove that dedication? Our brief was to engage our online fanbase in a way that would prove how much love there was for the Bundy brand in Australia, increasing share of voice both online and in mainstream media, with an idea that would get people talking.

Bundaberg Rum is one of the most beloved alcohol brands in Australia’s heartland. And Australia’s heartland is home to some truly wild people. People who are known for drinking their rum and cola out of a shoe, and who compete to see whose car exhaust can shoot flames the furthest. Some might call them unsophisticated or uncouth, but we think they’re loyal, passionate, fun-loving, and appreciative of a good joke. That being said, they’re not exactly the kind of people that you’d trust to plan your wedding.

The creative idea was to prove how much love there was for Bundy, by seeing if anyone would let a social media community plan the biggest day of love. Their wedding. The Wedding That Fans Built was a social media campaign where our entire Bundaberg Rum fanbase got to decide on every element of a couple’s big day. From the groom’s haircut to the couple’s vows — it would all be planned by the 400,000 members of our Bundy Facebook and Instagram pages.

Bundaberg Rum has a large following on its social channels of heartland Australians. Predominantly young men in Queensland, between the ages of 25-35 years old. But despite the large audience, engagement on its social channels was dwindling. So, over the course of a year we experimented with different social post types, and identified the posts that were most effective: Content centred around the brand merch and product. Personal stories about the brand. And cheeky banter with the audience.

We took those learnings and devised a 6-month schedule of social activity that would tap into each of the most effective content pillars. And rather than disconnected posts, we developed a single strategy that would both maintain, and build engagement over time. Based on the audience demographics we identified that hosting some kind of event would be the perfect engagement tool. But it needed some Bundy chaos.

We kicked off the campaign on Valentine’s Day with a social video asking if anyone would be willing to get married at our rum distillery. And let 400,000 of our fans on social media plan it for them. After receiving over 1,100 applications and narrowing that down to one lucky couple, we spent 6 months collaborating with our fans on social media to plan out every aspect of the upcoming wedding. The cake? A polar bear, like our mascot. The vows? Ghost-written by Bundy-mad strangers. The groom's haircut? Obviously a mullet. Every detail, down to the ‘candelier’ (a giant chandelier made from 200 cans of our rum), was crowd-sourced and suggested via our social community. We even ran a social competition for people to ‘crash’ the wedding, because what’s a wedding without some wedding crashers? 60 of the couple’s closest friends and family then attended the big day.

The Wedding That Fans Built was heralded as a huge success internally at Diageo and saw it achieve results far exceeding the expectations of client and agency.

Campaign Impact.

* Over 1,100 wedding applications were received on social media.

* 167 pieces of earned media coverage were generated with 100% positive sentiment.

* The campaign garnered 24.8 million earned impressions.

* Instagram engagement was 736% above the industry standard.

* Facebook engagement was 1444% above the industry standard.

* Facebook reach increased 93%

* Instagram reach increased 366%