Bacardi B-Live Radio / MSN Messenger

We recently ran a campaign along with partners Universal McCann Interactive in London and Blue Modus in Colorado to take the first consumer branded on-line/mobile radio station – Bacardi B-Live Radio onto MSN Instant Messenger.

The campaign was highly successful, even more so when you understand that, as with all spirit brands, there has to be a positive age verification barrier to ensure only consumers above the legal drinking age in their country of residence can enter the site and interact with the brand.

The design of Bacardi B-Live Radio on MSN Instant Messenger:

The Objectives were simple:

• Take the Bacardi brand to the consumer;
• Place B-Live Radio in a context where individuals are likely to pass on recommendations; and
• Allow audience to listen to the same songs while communicating with each other.

The campaign ran in 4 markets; United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Russia over a 3 month period.

As I said, the campaign was highly successful, although I can’t reveal the results as they are confidential to Bacardi; we do use this as a case study for potential clients.

The chart below shows the results against the target and as you can see half way through the campaign it was looking like it was going to provide stellar results. Having looked at this it was decided that there was not enough time left in the campaign to justify refreshing the content, which was the main reason for the plateau in the results.

In addition to this, the results also provided 60% more interaction time than expected with target consumers in their own environment.

And the Branding Effects:

• The majority of listeners surveyed agreed that it was good that they could listen to B-Live Radio whilst ‘chatting’ with friends on Messenger;
• The majority would recommend it to a friend; and
• Half said that the B-Live Radio integration has made Bacardi more appealing.

A highly successful result by any standard.

Bacardi DJ 2006: Official Honoree in The 11th Annual Webby Awards

Bacardi DJ 2006 which we delivered with design and build by our friends AgencyNet has made a big impact having just been selected as an Offical Honoree at the 11th Annual Webby Awards.

The e-mail says “It is my pleasure to inform you that Bacardi DJ 2006 has been selected as an Official Honoree in The 11th Annual Webby Awards, in the music category.

The Webby Awards, the leading international honor for the Web, today recognized Bacardi DJ as an Official Honoree for the Music category , a distinction that recognizes work exhibiting remarkable achievement. Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites. The awards are judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organization that includes David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, Matt Groening, Jamie Oliver, Internet inventor Vinton Cerf, and RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.

“The Webby Awards honors the outstanding work that is setting the standards for the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards. The Bacardi DJ Official Honoree selection is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.” The 11th Annual Webby Awards received a record 8,000 entries from over 60 countries and all 50 states.”

Bacardi DJ voted Top 10 Site of 2006 by Interactive Media Awards

A hugely successful website launched last year was the Bacardi DJ which has just been named as one of the TOP 10 sites of 2006 by Interactive Media Awards

The Bacardi DJ Mixer:

The IMA Awards recognize the highest standards of excellence in website design, development and marketing and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement.

There were thousands of entries, originating in 42 countries. From among these entries, IMA Annual Judges were asked to pick the cream of the crop: The top 10 highest scoring sites, Bacardi DJ being one of them!

The Bacardi DJ Website:

Bacardi Limited Website Launched

We have now also launched the first ever corporate website for Bacardi Limited, the parent company of all the Bacardi Companies and Bacardi-Martini Companies throughout the world. Again, our strategy and direction and managing the agency to final delivery of the solution.

Bacardi Limited – www.bacardilimited.com

We did some extensive research of other spirit companies, other privately owned companies and other luxury goods companies to make sure the website we finally delivered was a world-class winner, and we think we have achieved this. I hope you agree it’s a “very premium and professional website reflecting the company and its values” as the official announcement said.

New Bacardi Global Terms and Conditions

As well as consulting on internet strategies and implementing them we also advice on all aspects of the digital world. We therefore raised the issue a few weeks ago that Bacardi’s Terms and Condition and Privacy Policy were out of date and non compliant with new legislation and the new Company’s Act 2006.

It’s much less sexy than websites and other digital stuff, but none the less important so we’ve been working with some very intelligent legal people for a few weeks now to bring the Bacardi portfolio Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy up to date with currently legislation and practices. Our involvement was specifically to advise on how the websites are used, what is required from an operational point of view as well as using our general knowledge of all things digital to advise on Business, Marketing and Technical matters.

These documents cover all Bacardi Portfolio brands; BACARDI, DEWARS, ERISTOFF, CAZADORES, MARTINI, GREY GOOSE and BOMBAY SAPPHIRE as well as locally managed brands.

Recent Website Launches

We’ve also launched in the last few months:

www.dewarisms.com:

This is a very cool hold site while we develop the main website. 

www.dewarisms.com: Select “United States”.

This is the USA version of the holding site, very different to suit a different target audience but still very cool. There’s also some cool stuff on youtube etc, too much to list it all here. Link to YouTube Video.

www.bacardibliveradio.com on MSN Instant Messanger:

This is a fantastically successful campaign to take Bacardi B-live Radio, the worlds first branded radio station available on a mobile phone, onto MSN Instant Messanger.  So far we are 1 month into the campaign and are exceeding all the targets set. 

www.bacardiflavors.com:

This is a 3D environment USA website for the Flavours brand extension to Bacardi.  It’s also one of the first Flash based animated websites, at our insistance which still allows the browser to control the site, via the forward and back button, bookmarking pages and allowing deeplinking into the content which the consumer wishes to view.  It also has a really cool animated drinks mixer.

www.bacardidj.com:

Bacardi DJ 06 is a fantastic award winning online application which allows both advanced and beginners to mix tracks online like to professionals do. There’s a number of testimonials from high profile DJ’s which prove the value this online application truely has along with the numeros awards the site has won. The winner of Bacardi DJ 05 went on to a full recording contract with a record label.

www.bacardi.co.uk:

This again is a great website buiding using a hybrid of HTML and Flash. It’s much more of a portal in style but is very engaging with the consumer and activitly promotes offline activity run in the UK. The site was designed and built by Graphico in the UK with an initial strategy and steer from us. The site has been featured and highly praised by a couple of magazines.

Oopps

Sorry I should have pointed out that some of the websites listed aren’t live yet and that all will be changing to the new websites which we’re currently working on.

Anyway the exciting part is that these website will be relaunched soon.

Catch Up

Things are moving fast but I wanted to bring everyone up to date on what’s happening.

We’re working extensively for Bacardi Global Brands on their BACARDI rum www.bacardi.com, DEWARS blended scotch whisky www.dewars.com, ERISTOFF vodka www.eristoff.com and CAZADORES tequila www.cazadores.com brands, as well as a website for Bacardi Limited www.bacardilimited.com the parent company and looking at an e-commerce shop for them.  We’ve also developed a Digital Strategy, helped define the role for the new Digital Team and are developing the technical platform for hosting of their websites, streaming video, podcast mobile content etc.

We’re also working for a very good long term client Petrology, www.petrology.com re-designing and developing their website, and looking at ways to help them market themselves, a bit of a challenge as they don’t like shouting about themselves.

 Anyway I think this should bring everyone up to date on what we’re up to.