Given what we had learned, we needed to give people their own personal connection to our story. We had to create a vivid demonstration of Lynchburg, Tennessee, coming to them, to make it tangible and give it at least a little local presence all around the world.

So we created the Jack Daniel’s 150th Anniversary Barrel Hunt, in which we took 150 authentic used Jack Daniel’s whiskey barrels, filled them with prizes, and hid them all around the world for our fans to find and talk about. Clues to their locations were vintage photographs of what each barrel’s hiding spot looked like many years ago. The takeaway? In a world that has changed an awful lot since the distillery opened in 1866, Jack Daniel’s whiskey is the same whiskey Jack himself made.

To motivate consumers to participate, we launched teaser videos and posts on local social media pages. Folks were encouraged to follow the hunt from one country to the next, and when the Barrel Hunt reached their local market, we shared vintage photo clues on Facebook that guided participants to the hidden locations. The first person to find the prize-filled barrel won it.

We faced very different situations across the 50+ markets participating, so we developed two flexible user flows to enable all markets to adapt it for local considerations like cultural issues, business considerations, or local liquor laws. While each market followed a similar rollout plan, communication flow, and look and feel, they also tapped into local channels to make the campaign more relevant to their target. Its success hinged on the fact that local markets could own their own activation, while all laddering up to a global brand campaign.

While the Barrel Hunt was a global campaign, its success was built through each local market’s efforts.

GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT / REACH

We directly engaged a global audience in more than 50 participating countries. This gave even distant markets an exciting and relevant activation opportunity.

• 150 Barrels ? 57 Markets ? 92 Days

• 122M Total Consumers Reached

• 11% Global Engagement Rate

LOCAL MARKET ENGAGEMENT / REACH

The flexibility of the program allowed market teams to tailor the activation in a locally relevant way while providing a unified program for global conversation. We were also able to leverage cultural relevance to foster a larger conversation around Jack Daniel’s authenticity, heritage & independence for 150 years.

FAN GROWTH

Not only did the activation engage the Jack Daniel’s loyalist, it also invited new friends into the Jack Daniel’s brand:

• 1.2M New Facebook fans

• 10% Global Facebook fan growth