Guinness Singapore have annually activated SPD, but in recent years volume has plateaued.

Whilst expats use it as an excuse to over-indulge, every year the brand sells about the same amount of Guinness to the same expat audience.

In order to grow their volume from the SPD opportunity, we decided we needed to target Singaporeans and get them to drink Guinness. By drinking Guinness not only would we grow our volumes incrementally, we would also get them to trial the product for future benefit.

But this was no easy feat.

That’s because there is no link between Singaporeans and Ireland, or to St. Patrick himself.

Our challenge was just that: Find a relevant link between Singaporeans and St. Patrick’s Day to drive incremental volume from locals via a direct and volume-driving campaign.

For St Patrick's Day in Singapore, Guinness turned every local Patrick into a saint.

For mass outreach, we created promotional perks all in the name of local Patricks. Subsequently through LinkedIn we hunted and singled out all the Pats based here in Singapore. From Patricks to Patricias to Patrines, we targeted our new Saints and made them feel special by creating pop-up Guinness bars where they worked. Exclusive gift packs were sent out to them, surprising them with invites to the festival.

In a small market like Singapore, we needed to change the conversation from a global brand message celebrating St. Patrick, into a more direct and locally relevant message. With no link between Singaporeans and St. Patrick, we instead found link between Singaporeans and local Pats.

We worked with data partners LinkedIn and found 6,788 Patricks, Patricias and other Pat-derivatives to target. That’s not every Pat but it gave us a solid base to target via digital and retargeted video content to invite to our brand experiences. We identified some famous Pats to target too, to create PR-able amplification that spread into popular culture.

And because we’re an inclusive brand in an inclusive nation, we backed it all up with mainstream media to spread a wider message inviting all non-Pats to help us celebrate they all Pats they know.

2019 was to be the year Singaporeans All Hailed Pats!

The first thing we decided was that we need to create different kinds of SPD events compared to previous years. One big event where Singaporeans could All Hail Pats, supported by smaller on-trade activations. We used all activity to drive traffic to our events during the month prior.

Our lucky Pats were asked to sign up for the events, and we encouraged non-Pat Singaporeans to sign up for the event too with a trial-driving promotion in local bars.

By capturing all email and mobile numbers, we kept in constant contact throughout the time before the event, giving them teasers and benefits to keep the brand front of mind.

At the brand events, whilst Singaporeans do drink, it’s usually as an accompaniment to food with family. So our events were more family-oriented with multiple food stalls.

Singapore sits 152nd on the WHO list of alcohol consumption per capita meaning Singaporeans aren’t huge drinkers.

Plus, the fact it’s 30 degrees most days, and Guinness has a perception of being thick and heavy, it underlines just how tough a job it was growing our overall volume by getting locals to drink.

But we smashed it.

BUSINESS: Year on year 6% increase in Guinness Draught volumes sales per outlet, and 12% increase islandwide.

MARKETING: Over 10,000 people signed up to the main event, a 50% increase from last year, with 80% of eventual attendees being Singaporeans. On-trade activations followed the same pattern with 2.6x more pints redeemed.

COMMS: Our targeting of famous Pats reached over 17m people in earned media (in a population of 5.5m people), meaning it was impossible for Singaporeans to escape the fact Guinness was hailing all Pats!