Drink Festival is Diageo’s annual event held at several bars in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Fortaleza and Curitiba. Each bar develops a special menu of drinks using Diageo’s brands, such as Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Ketel One and Bulleit Bourbon.

This campaign had to get people’s attention and direct them to those bars, where they could try the drinks.

We all know the names of classic drinks, but why is the Moscow Mule called Moscow Mule? And why is the Old Fashioned called Old Fashioned?

That was our starting point to trigger people's curiosity: a campaign that explored these curious tales of how a doctor's recipe and the fear of India made the Gin & Tonic, how bad ideas and traditions created the Old Fashioned, and how three misfortuned business people in Hollywood created the Moscow Mule. By showing every detail of how each drink came to life, we invited people to find and taste them at the Drink Festival.

We did extensive research on every single detail of these drinks and the context in which each one of them came to life. What was going on in those countries, what people wore and what bar counter decoration was like back then.

We used those findings and developed the stories and all the visual elements in a style just like what history revealed to us: all the historical facts building up around the drink, until it came together in a glass (or copper mug, for the Moscow Mule).

This campaign (which started only as a briefing to create a few layouts for table tents inside bars) raised people awareness about a whole new world of drinks and got them talking about how much culture and history there is on every bar counter. This conversation around our campaign material also helped bartenders, who used the same strategy to share their own stories of how they created new drinks with new flavours inspired by different parts of the world.