Absolut - Lime Launch

When Absolut launched their first new product in 10 years - Absolut Lime - they needed to make a major impact. So drawing on Absolut’s longstanding commitment to creativity, we partnered with America's biggest night in music - The GRAMMY’S - to #RefreshTheTalk by creating a piece of subversive technology that infiltrated the conversation on the red carpet. We tapped emerging artists Santigold and Skylar Grey, and TV host Erin Lin, to wear these provocative accessories - connected digital clutches - on the red carpet. A team of female artists used them to hijack red-carpet interviews and shift the conversation from "What are you wearing?" to fans' prompts for empowerment and equality. We also helped broker a number of strategic partnerships in the days leading up to the launch, including one with Entertainment Tonight for an Absolut Lime Green Room where on-air personalities reported all Grammy-related news. We created 59 Absolut Lime branded bars inside the Staples Center the night of the event so everywhere attendees looked, Absolut Lime was there, and placed an Absolut Lime ad that ran during the awards show for at home viewers. The campaign was featured on 60+ news outlets and garnered 455 million impressions, including over 150 million impressions on Grammy’s night itself, with 18,000 consumers sampling the product at the Grammys itself.

We followed that campaign up with an even grander ambition - The Open Mic Project. This collaborative initiative, designed in partnership with singer songwriter and actress Rita Ora, provided a platform for amplifying, and uniting, voices across the nation to refresh the talk once again. As a brand known for collaborating with creative forces big and small – from artists to musicians to mixologists – The Open Mic Project aligned to Absolut’s larger mission of using creativity as a force for positive change and inspiring action. The Open Mic Project took real stories of acceptance from fearless fans, friends and followers – including Ora’s personal story – and housed them within a community of inclusivity at TheOpenMicProject.com. Throughout the submission period Rita Ora used The Open Mic Project acceptance stories to inspire a new song, as a step toward creating an environment in which all people feel valued and respected. The song, “Proud,” premiered exclusively on Spotify and was amplified by behind-the-scenes video content documenting the song's genesis. Overall, the activation generated 52MM impressions and 5.89MM consumer engagements and more importantly, sales of Absolut Lime exceeded expectations.