We were tasked with launching unknown drinks brand HUN Wines during the global pandemic. The HUN Wines brand was created with a loud personality and an unapologetic voice in the aim of celebrating the unique. Their goal for us was to develop a campaign that had influencers at the heart of it in the aim of creating instant fame for the brand amongst millennials. With the global pandemic putting a halt to all social events in the height of summer, our approach had to not only take these challenges into account, but embrace the alternative opportunities and bring the nation something to smile about.
THE SOLUTION - The #hundredsociety
With no budget to go big, we turned to a technique known as the majority illusion (when a message becomes seemingly viral as a result of popularity within a small yet influential community).As a brand known for celebrating the unique, we saw an opportunity to tap into the realm of sub-culture communities across social media and champion those unafraid to stand out. Capitalising on the power these groups have when they come together as a collective, we replicated the majority illusion across these communities and used the small millennial networks to spread the word. Running our campaign prior to the launch date we were able to pair this strategy with a dose of scarcity tactics, offering up exclusive cans to drive FOMO (fear of missing out) amongst our audience.
Recruiting 10 influential leaders of these millennial groups to take on the HUN Wines brand message and introduce their audience to the positivity and premium taste of HUN Wines, our talent came together to form ‘The HUNdred Society’. A collective of ten unique ‘HUNfluencers’ with the opportunity to reward their followers with the first exclusive hundred cans of HUN.
THE results
This strategy allowed us to authentically tap into these subcultures, with content including everything from HUN hotlines and drag queen lip syncs through to bespoke illustrations and vegan food spreads. The clear and consistent branding message remained throughout the campaign, but each piece of content that the talent created was bespoke to them. This enabled each Hun-fluencer to hone in on an element of the brand’s messaging that they felt resonated with them and their audiences, and meant the content created was truly authentic.
By allowing our influencers to shape the narrative, we were able to create content that genuinely connected with a wide audience on a much deeper level. This naturally brought the brand fame and in-turn led to a huge sense of anticipation for the product amongst the target audience which can be witnessed in the positive audience sentiment at 90 per cent! The campaign was a huge success going on to win Best Product Launch at the 2020 Digiday Awards and a Silver award for Best Infuencer Campaign at the Content Marketing Awards.
