While the gin category was experiencing a renaissance, Bombay Sapphire’s growth was softening as it lost share to challenger brands. But, with its uniquely balanced flavor profile, Bombay Sapphire was the perfect, versatile starter gin for those entering the category. So, we set out to introduce vodka drinkers to gin by showing that Bombay Sapphire is the more creative and interesting choice for any cocktail. Through its “Stir Creativity” platform, which consisted of both affinity and education driving content, we began to build the connection between Bombay Sapphire and creativity.

New York City is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But lately it seems like the city that never sleeps also never stops growing. Today, Manhattan is home to 7,437 active construction sites; every single one is a fortress of unsightly green panels and clunky metal scaffoldings. These days, the green walls have completely taken over the city. But what if these eyesores were turned into a canvas for creativity?

With our new campaign, Art in Progress, we asked established and up-and-coming artists to reimagine these construction panels around the city, and turn them original works of art. Once the panels were complete, they were placed in construction sites all over the city, transforming eyesores into beautiful open-air galleries that inspired New Yorkers to Stir Creativity.

To demonstrate that Bombay Sapphire is a creative brand for inventive cocktails, we looked to reach a recruitment audience of ambitious 25-44 year old spirit drinkers, that typically opt for vodka over gin. This audience was clustered in metropolitan areas and cared about the environment, art and giving back to their communities. As a result, we complemented our traditional media placements with a disruptive activation that worked hard to build the association between Bombay Sapphire and creativity, while stopping New Yorkers in their tracks.

We commissioned nine fine artists to reimagine the construction boards.

Each board was 9ft by 4ft, which is a very odd dimension, so it became an interesting challenge for artists to create a piece that would fit this dimension.

We removed the boards from the construction site and delivered them to each artist’s studio. After a few weeks, we picked them up and placed them, exactly how they came from their studio, back into the construction site.

Each artist’s approach was different:

Malik Roberts and Ivan Alifan did oil paintings, Michelle Avery did a watercolor painting on paper then pasted into the wood. Christy Lee Rogers pasted a large-scale underwater photograph on the wood panel. Adam Lucas, Matthew Grabelsky and Jim Houser did very interesting compositions with acrylics over the construction board. Joaquin Salim did a mixed media composition over the wood panel.

Thanks to Art in Progress, New Yorkers stopped to do something they never do; admire construction site walls. An extension of the experience was amplified to the national audience to showcase Bombay’s unique take on creativity without boundaries. Art in Progress achieved over 9.6M total impressions (over 80 times more than the brand would have achieved with a standard OOH placement) and 1.6M total engagements. To amplify the activation, social content that told the story of Art in Progress was created, resulting in a 10-second-view through rate, which was 32% above the brand's benchmark.