Caledonia Best & Sam Torrance - A year of Golfing Heaven

CELEBRATING A YEAR OF GOLFING HEAVEN FOR SCOTTISH GOLF FANS WITH A BRAND CAMPAIGN TO MATCH

The 2014 Ryder Cup was arguably the pinnacle of an unforgettable summer of sport in Scotland. As proud supporter of Ryder Cup Vice-Captain Sam Torrance, Caledonia Best were uniquely placed to deliver an unforgettable year of Golfing Heaven for Scottish golf fans, against the backdrop of the sport’s showcase event.

CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND
Having launched into the Scottish on trade market in late 2011, Caledonia Best quickly sought to establish routes via which to engage its target audience of 35-55 year old ale-drinking males. Consumer research highlighted golf as a significant interest point; however, with Caledonia Best’s main competitor already active in this territory, the brand needed a bold statement to announce itself and swiftly build credibility.
In Sam Torrance, Caledonia Best found the perfect partner with which to establish its golf credentials. Sam is the embodiment of the brand personality; charismatic, dry, Scottish, respected, a hero, but a man of the people. Sam was also synonymous with the Ryder Cup, allowing opportunity to leverage his connection with the sport’s biennial transatlantic competition.
The brand had already enjoyed a two year relationship with Sam, going into 2014.
The first two years of the partnership were focussed on delivering benefit for trade customers and sales teams, helping to drive rapid distribution and sales growth.

2014 presented an opportunity to shift emphasis more towards consumers, in what was set to be a huge year for golf in Scotland.

OBJECTIVES
Our brief was to deliver a nationwide (Scotland) consumer campaign to win the ‘ultimate golf experience’ hosted by Caledonia Best’s Clubhouse Captain, Sam Torrance, which sought to:
• Drive awareness of the brand and its association with Sam
• Differentiate the brand from competitors and build engagement through shared passion for golf
• Deliver a high-profile, national through-the-line campaign
• Increase off-trade sales volume for Q2 (promotional period) by 50% compared to 2013
• Positively impact on brand consideration, cut-through and participation amongst target audience
• Drive brand trial and repeat consumption amongst target audience
• Provide leverage to increase Facebook following by 50%

Delivering the ‘ultimate golf experience’ could be difficult – after all, it’s relative to any one individual. We therefore looked to create a campaign proposition that would deliver an unforgettable golf experience and spoke to our target audience by way of common golfing parlance. Hence, the Golfing Heaven campaign was born.

EXECUTION & EXPLOITATION
The premise of Golfing Heaven was simple – we asked Scottish golfers to reveal their vision of Golfing Heaven, for the chance to share in Sam’s.
By submitting their dream four-ball line-ups, one winner and two friends would join Sam for an unforgettable four-ball of their own at the world-renowned Valderrama Club in southern Spain.
The venue provided a stunning backdrop for the Golfing Heaven prize but also linked back to an integral part of Sam’s very own dream 4-ball line-up – the great Seve Ballesteros. A close friend and playing companion of Sam, Seve captained the European team to Ryder Cup glory at Valderrama in ‘97, linking the venue back to our now Ryder Cup Vice Captain.
To further drive consumer traction, we compiled a rich second tier prize pool, allowing for instant wins via the entry portal and Caledonia Best’s new Facebook platform, adding value to the consumer beyond the ‘big win’.

Trade
To increase sales volume and product trial, a ‘purchase necessary’ element was applied to entry. On purchasing a 4-pack in store (off trade) or a pint in bar (on trade), consumers received a unique reference code to validate their online submission via the dedicated entry website www.caledoniabestgolf.com .
30,000 4-packs were printed with a special promotional wrap while bespoke POS kits were distributed to 200 Scottish on trade outlets, including a number of golf clubs.

Media Partnership
To ensure a national platform for PR output, we partnered with News Corp UK & Ireland, securing brand content across three key newspaper titles – The Scottish Sun as lead, The Times and The Sunday Times, boasting a combined weekly readership of 4.5 million. This enabled us to reach a large cross-section of our audience demographic (60% male readership, 37% 34-55, 34% 55+ across three titles) while tapping into the Scottish Sun’s dedicated sports team to leverage access to Sam throughout the campaign.

Launch
Our launch comprised two key elements. The Scottish Sun published a branded 4-page pull-out, featuring exclusive content and full promotional details.
To support this, and deliver a piece of humorous, shareable content across Caledonia Best’s digital channels, we created a short video to engage consumers and promote the call-to-action.
The execution saw Sam secretly visit a driving range where he duped unsuspecting regulars into testing a new ‘state-of-the-art’ golf analysis system - The Samulator. Believing they were getting real-time analysis from a computer programme endorsed by Sam, golfers’ moves were in fact being captured on camera, with Sam providing hilarious commentary on the action unfolding before him.
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_dm3rgZqoE

ATL
OOH advertising delivered high impact on-the-ground presence, with 6-sheets utilised at golf clubs to closely target our core golf audience and large format sites identified across key areas in Scotland’s central belt.

Social
Facebook was utilised to maintain momentum and build loyalty via a series of secondary prize giveaways, including a luxury overnight stay at a 5-star golf resort. This proved a great opportunity to draw new fans via audience-targeted posts.

Prize Fulfilment
The Valderrama trip could not have been timelier, set against the backdrop of a victorious Ryder Cup just three weeks prior.
Our winners jetted out to Spain for a two-night all expenses paid stay in Marbella. Joined by Sam on the first night, our winners were treated to a surreal evening of tales from the 19th hole. The following day, they were truly served up a piece of Golfing Heaven as they took to the famous Valderrama fairways in near 30 degree sunshine for an unforgettable afternoon of golf with the six-time Ryder Cup winner.

EVALUATION
Golfing Heaven met all key objectives:
• Delivered a high-profile, integrated national campaign with touch-points across traditional, social and digital media, on and off trade activation and targeted ATL presence:

- News Corp partnership delivered a broad package of branded coverage, including;
 4-page launch pull-out and 5 subsequent pages of branded editorial
 Ryder Cup supplement sponsorship (24 pages of branded coverage)
 19 dedicated adverts placed alongside relevant content
 Dedicated competition channel on Scottish Sun website (100k weekly readership)
 In-paper and online coverage of launch video edit
- ATL – 48 Sheets achieved 41.6% coverage and an estimated 3.5 frequency with audiences

• Off trade sales volumes for Q2 increased by 127% on previous year.
• On-pack success contributed to an increased production rate and led to the sanction of further on-pack takeovers.
• The campaign had a positive impact on brand engagement amongst ale drinkers aware of the activity: brand consideration (70%), cut-through (33%) and participation (80%).
• The activity has built trial and loyalty - 85% of ale drinkers have now tried Caledonia Best with 88% having drunk it in the last 3 months to 4 weeks and 65% having drunk it in the last 4 weeks to 7 days.
• The campaign contributed to an uplift of 114% in Facebook page likes.
• Launch video quickly amassed over 3000 YouTube views and proved most popular Facebook post to date (over 580 interactions), driving early campaign buzz and talk-ability.