For Jameson Irish Whiskey, St. Patrick’s Day is not just a day. It’s a four-week “season” that defines one of the brand’s most critical business periods for the year.

When the brand saw Leap Year had bumped St. Patrick’s Day from Saturday to Sunday, they refused to let a calendar glitch get in the way of a good time with friends and family. With a softening category and Sunday a historically lighter day for alcohol sales (when St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Sunday in 2019, sales dropped 9%), we were tasked with creating a scalable, earned first idea to fuel Jameson’s ecosystem and position the brand as the drink of St. Patrick’s Day.

Success was solidifying Jameson’s cultural relevance in the weeks leading into March 17th to ensure the brand is top of mind as consumers plan their festivities and increase sales especially in our key markets.

We all waited seven years for St. Patrick’s Day to fall on a carefree Saturday, when many consumers don’t have to worry about work that day or the next. And in 2024, it was supposed to. But Leap Year had other plans. So, when we saw the calendar 'feck' with St. Patrick’s Day, we decided to 'feck' with the calendar in return—changing the date of the holiday, upending centuries-old traditions, and getting the party started the night before with the introduction of St. Patrick’s Eve (SPE).

Riffing on New Year’s Eve, we put a Jameson twist on the New Year traditions Americans love, counting down the hours to St. Patrick’s Day.

Taking a page out of New Year’s Eve’s playbook, we knew a few things 1) SPE had to be Epic, 2) Countdowns are everything, 3) There must be a ball drop, 4) We wanted to reach everyone (21+ only, of course) planning to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.

The four-week 360 media plan aimed to:

1) Accelerate buzz, excite people, and get them talking about SPE from coast-to-coast.

2) Continuously hype people for SPE by infusing countdowns across channels.

3) Inspire people to have the most epic SPE – deliver media in all the places people go when prepping for a big night out.

4) Put media at the center of celebrations in New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Los Angeles with live countdowns for SPE.

Our integrated campaign would make SPE unmissable.

We put Jameson at the center of the party and hyped people for SPE, telling them where to go, what to drink, what to wear, what to listen to, and more.

With relevant, strategic media we:

- Took over Times Square and dropped the Times Square Ball with a SPE countdown – an unprecedented first.

- Wrapped Chicago River ferries in Jameson SPE banners during the green river dyeing – another unprecedented first.

- Took over the Las Vegas Sphere for 1-week and held a SPE countdown – 1st spirit brand on Sphere.

- Showed partygoers where to celebrate SPE with guides on Eater and Thrillist.

- Amped people for SPE with sponsored playlists and listening sessions on Spotify.

- Hyped SPE when people were out on the town in Ubers.

- Took over TimeOut.com, a local nightlife guide, in key markets.

- Inspired Pinterest party planners with custom boards.

Jameson introduced a new holiday. It was unmissable coast-to-coast and brought thousands of people together to celebrate.

Results include:

- 8.5B combined paid and earned impressions with press on CNN, Entertainment Tonight, People, Variety & more

- 99.4M video completions, +13% increase in social video completion rate vs benchmark

- 7.8% increase in week-over-week sales (during the week of St. Patrick’s Day)

- Increase in key market week-over-week sales for Jameson Original including:

- New York: +5.6%

- Chicago: +33%

- Las Vegas: +10.9%

- Los Angeles: +2.6%

- An incremental sales lift of +4.71% during the SPE campaign, generating $2.4 million in incremental revenue attributed to out of home activation

- Sold out a party in Times Square (5,000 attendees)

- 1M clicks to the SPE website