Absolut. #Eurocolors

Client: Pernod Ricard
Product: Absolut
Campaign: #EuroColors
Year: 2015

Since it was founded, Absolut has strived for social progress and has endeavoured to play a role in the social inclusion of the LGBT community (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender). Thus in mid-2015, the brand launched Absolut Colors – a limited edition bottle bearing the colours of the rainbow flag.

To spread the word about its launch, Absolut and Social Noise developed #EuroColors, a special initiative with Eurovision as its focal point, an event with a devoted following by the brand’s target audience.

To this end, we developed an idea with the fusion of technology, creativity and digital strategy at its core. Our aim was to harness Eurovision’s second screen, taking an active role in the social conversation unfolding on Twitter surrounding the event.

Making the most of Twitter

A Twitter auto-responder service was created to make it easier to follow the event, providing real-time information on a single country’s ranking or the overall number of brand mentions (@absolut_es). We made use of promoted tweets to explain how the service worked.We also got the hashtag #EuroColors trending and launched a promoted account in searches, ensuring that our campaign would have an impact on all Twitter users.

Launching of the eurocolors.es microsite

The entire initiative centred around the absolutcolors.es microsite, a platform that was created especially for the event where visitors had access to real-time data, maps, infographics, and illustrations fed by the Twitter conversation taking place about Eurovision.

To enhance user experience on handheld devices, it was developed with a mobile-first design. A WhatsApp feature was even set up for the web version for sharing content.

Relying on influencers to spread the word

In special collaboration on this campaign was artist Moderna de Pueblo, who created illustrations of funny clichés about each participating country. These illustrations were featured on promoted tweets and on auto-responder right after each country’s performance.In addition, two days before the gala, an exclusive introductory event was held for influencers within the LGBT community attended by the likes of Miranda Makaroff, Roi Porto and Nacho Aznar (Oliete).

Results

The #EuroColors campaign achieved an engagement rate of over 13%, with CPEs reaching €0.05, and a total of over 176,000 interactions, setting a record in Spain in terms of number of interactions generated by a brand initiative linked to an event on Twitter. The night of the celebration, 361,000 tweets were analysed. The #EuroColors hashtag also got over 6,700 mentions and @Absolut_ES had a major impact on social media, with a 40% increase in following.

Without a doubt, #EuroColors enabled us to position Absolut Colors at the heart of the conversation, harnessing the Eurovision 2015 second screen. But more importantly, we made Absolut’s target audience aware of the launch of the new limited edition Absolut Colors bottle.