Snapchat’s AR Disruption Drives Exceptional Awareness for Strongbow

Cider marketing in the UK is all about stylised and highly traditional shots of orchards and countryside. Strongbow, owned by HEINEKEN, was looking to reinvigorate and disrupt the cider category with its new Strongbow Ultra Dark Fruit. Knowing they were asking their 18 – 40 target audience to try something new, Strongbow’s Ultra Dark Fruit needed to behave differently. Playing on the phrase “greatest of all time” – or G.O.A.T. – Strongbow came up with “Drink the G.O.A.T.”, a campaign featuring a purple goat, nodding along to garage music. 

Snapchat had worked with HEINEKEN for many years, but this was the biggest campaign they had been entrusted with for Strongbow. The platform has the perfect target audience and if anyone could capture their imagination  – driving both product awareness and brand intent – Snapchat could. 

To capitalise on the summer spike in cider drinking, the Snapchat campaign was planned for  April to June. A multi-product strategy was devised to maximise against the awareness KPIs. To drive both reach and attention a combination of full screen, sound-on Snap ads and commercials were used, featuring the product being drunk, Strongbow branding, together with the garage track. 

To boost engagement and capture the disruptive fun of the goat creative, an AR lens was developed to support the campaign. This was the first time that Strongbow had used a lens with Snapchat and expectations were running high. The innovative activation didn’t disappoint. When Snapchatters shouted ‘Goat’ they were transformed into the music-loving purple goat. Not only that, but a link to the Asda website in the lens enabled them to buy the product straightaway. 

The combination of high impact Snap Ads with the attention commanding commercials and lens led to a 9 point lift in product awareness and an 8 point lift in ad awareness ¹. The engaging experience of the lens ensured the campaign proved memorable among the target audience, with product awareness shifting +13 points ². Product awareness also increased by 14+ after multi product exposure ³. On top of the impressive brand lift results, the campaign also reached over 7.5M Snapchatters, ensuring Strongbow Ultra Dark Fruit Cider was top of mind during the summer months. In fact, the campaign was so successful that it was extended into both July and August.