#DXB Cucumber Day – Cucumber Currency

To celebrate the magical green fruit, on May 17th, in participating bars and retail stores, the cucumber was accepted as currency and exchanged for a Hendrick’s Gin & Tonic (garnished by the humble cucumber of course).

Cucumber Day was invented by cucumber growers, in England in 2011, to extol the virtues of the cucumber.

Hendrick’s Gin related to the growers and shared their passion and admiration for the cucumber. The brand inspired people to recognise the virtues and hidden qualities of the green fruit.

Hendrick’s wanted to celebrate the fruit that helped make Hendrick’s Gin the wonderful liquid it is (infused by rose and cucumber). DXB Cucumber Day was the perfect excuse to honour the remarkable and virtuous cucumber.

Seeding (March/April): Engaging with key influencers early with quirky collateral to create content with; such as cucumber cultivation kits to grow their own cucumbers at home and share online the progress.

Venue signups (March): Through trade engagement, 37 venues and 20 retail stores signed up to execute the activation. Each venue received unusual merchandise to promote the event such as “The Unusual Times” newspaper.

Media (May 1st – 17th): Adapted copy was approved by Facebook to run promoted video posts targeting ex pat westerners, targeting 445k views

BTL promotion (May 17th) : we had actors playing the roles of a Cucumber farmer and his wife visiting offices of ex pat white collar workers handing out cucumbers with a message wrapped around them regarding outlets they could redeem a complimentary Hendrick’s & tonic.

In venue activation (May 17th): 45 outlets and 20 retail stores accepted Cucumbers on the day as currency.

Business impact: May sales +36% (not including free samples) and Full Year sales +34%

Customer impact: Some venues had as much as 1,500 people enter with cucumbers to give them record breaking revenues on historically a more quiet night of the week (Wednesday).

Response rate: 15,000 cucumbers redeemed for Hendrick’s & Tonic among 12,000 consumers

Change of behavior: Super premium Gin category grew + 20% driven by Hendrick’s recruiting drinkers from vodka category (which declined -8%)

PR exposure of 10,969,819 across traditional & digital media (Unparalleled for alcohol brand in dark market)

Digital advertising reach:

Over 4.9m impressions

Over 750k views

Over 1500 instagram posts and stories tagging DXB Cucumber Day landed

Other brand’s tried to leverage the DXB Cucumber Day: Durex on social media, Waitrose supermarket promoted the day themselves (not influenced by us) and ran out of cucumbers in some of their stores!