Baileys is an adult treat. Part booze, part cake, pure pleasure, Baileys has redefined itself globally from being seen as a liqueur to a delicious adult treat, paired with chocolate, ice cream, cake and dessert. Your co-conspirator in the pursuit of pleasure.

This global strategy has built the brand worldwide, an idea almost twice as effective as anything the brand had done before, so far delivering €250m of gross profit over 5 years in the markets where it was modelled.

This is an idea simple enough to travel to 153 countries, yet flexible enough to feel crafted for each one.

Our brief was to bring this to life for Baileys in the UK, where the brand was most associated with Christmas. We decided to target the UK’s fastest growing (trick and) treat festival - Halloween. But Baileys had never been here before. We needed a fresh way to turn up.

Baileys HallowQween - no tricks, just treats.

We saw an opportunity to celebrate another fast growing adult treat in the UK - drag culture. Drag is one of the UK’s fastest growing forms of entertainment, with millions watching drag on TV and attending a growing number of live events all across the country. Particularly popular with the core Baileys audience of women and of course the LGBTQI+ community.

We would create HallowQween, a partnership between Baileys and some of the UK’s leading Drag artists and performers. With diversity and inclusion at the heart we hosted a live drag show, inviting influencers, journalists and some of our important trade customers to enjoy specially created Baileys cocktails for the evening.

To be a real adult treat, your true co-conspirator in the pursuit of pleasure, Baileys aims to connect deeply with treat culture. This always goes way beyond product and advertising.

As part of these ongoing efforts, we monitor signals from treat culture more broadly, understanding the moments in time that are more associated with treats. And Halloween was getting hot. Since 2013, UK consumers spending on Halloween treats has more than doubled.

The other trend we could see was the growth of Drag, as a once underground and marginal culture was starting to take centre stage, with the UK’s top Drag performers now getting prime time TV coverage and more and more live shows staged everywhere, not just in the big cities.

Our strategy was to create a delicious blend of these two new treat occasions, and pour Baileys all over it, extending the season to enjoy Baileys treats.

Baileys HallowQween, crashed the seasonal party with no tricks, just treats from the UK’s leading Drag artists and performers, including Laurence Chaney, Sister Sister and Asia Thorne. An integrated campaign with high reach paid media channels with contextual alignment and progressive media partners, to Get Ready With Me content from influencer Cheryl Hole driving lashings of cultural buzz, putting Baileys choctails in on trade menus and choctail sampling in the off trade.

The Queens performed live at iconic London venue Tonight Josephine. Murals featuring our HallowQueens adorned walls near the venue. We partnered with the Queens to create delicious new choctails for everyone to enjoy, like Tasty Witch, Coffee Cauldron and The Zesty Witch, overflowing with chocolate, coffee, juice and Baileys. On the invite list were taste makers on the treat scene and in LGBTQI+ culture, making sure that our bullseye audience couldn’t miss these new Baileys Halloween treats.

The Halloween Boom, the Cocktail Boom and the Drag Boom created a Baileys Boom.

Our paid amplification reached 39m adults and PR coverage of our event reached over 5m, with 202 pieces of coverage across all media.

We unlocked new dialogue with our on trade customers, increasing our Halloween listings with them. And we accessed new LGBTQI+ venues for Baileys.

We tapped into the growing cocktails trend with Baileys now being seen as more relevant in this moment.

Brand awareness grew by 1.6% year on year and over 2m people drank Baileys in October.

We created authentic inclusion and celebration of a hugely important and influential Baileys fan community - the LGBTQI+ audience.