Sabé - Award Submission

SABÉ is a great idea:
canned cocktails that are actually cocktail-strength.

But the category is crowded and full of products that underwhelm: low ABV, high sugar, sketchy ingredients. In short, if you love cocktails, you probably hate canned cocktails. The brand faced an uphill battle.

That battle began in Texas. We launched the brand with a paid media campaign in the top four DMAs. SABÉ needed to get on the radar of potential customers, overcome category misconceptions, and drive sales at key accounts while opening new retail and DTC channels.

So how do you let everyone know that these are real, super boozy cocktails without saying they’re super boozy?

You build a clever campaign around an anthemic double entendre: “Ready to Drink.” It hijacked category vernacular and rhetorically asked potential customers if they were ready for something better.

Our “Ready to Drink” campaign came to life as pre-roll on YouTube, across Facebook & Instagram as dynamic social stories and paid ads, organic content, plus a geofenced mobile campaign that engaged customers near SABÉ retail accounts. The work appeared in the four biggest DMAs across Texas. The campaign gave the brand immediate momentum, which led to a green-light of market expansions in North & South Carolina.

TheResults

5x

In critical Dallas-Ft. Worth DMA, campaign yielded CTR 5x the benchmark

64%

Average CTR across the campaign exceeded benchmark by over 64%

Opened DTC

Opened DTC channels while maintaining key retail account in the largest supermarket chain in Texas

OVER 75%

Advanced geofencing mobile campaign engaged customers near SABÉ retail accounts, yielding video completion rates of 75%+ and CTRs 35% above benchmark

EXPANSION

Early success led to additional market expansion in North & South Carolina

THANK YOU!

by illuminator

NOR - Awards Submssion

This one started with nothing more than an extremely worthy mission:
To fix the state of play in the gaming industry.

Our first job was to get this idea funded. We designed and helped craft the pitch deck, which was well-received. One fund manager called it “the standard by which all future decks will be judged.” They nailed down their series A round within two months.

Next, it was time to build demand for this product while we simultaneously built the product. This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the future of product development in a Web3 world.

We laid the foundation with a brand strategy guide, messaging strategy and content strategy.

Then the founder and CEO got a spot on a high-profile podcast and we suddenly had to move up our schedule by a month.

We Went to Work

We stood up a digital footprint for the brand: site, IG, Twitter, and most importantly, Discord. All of our content drives to the Discord server where communities passionate about these kinds of projects unite.

We then created content around key beats in the brand launch:
As the (extremely-quotable) CEO, Brooks Brown, went on podcasts and did AMAs, we repurposed highlights for our owned channels. People began to understand what makes this project so special. And “We burn your fucking NFT” became a meme in our Discord community.

Simultaneously, we released a steady stream of teaser content—concept art, game ideas, lore—to build a spirit of co-creation with our community and keep them engaged.

All of this built hype and earned impressions from the category which reached a fervor when we announced our first NFT drop, called The Aspect of the Nine. The NFT art is a beautiful representation of which “family” you’re a part of in the game world. The functionality of the NFT is more important, however. By owning one, you’re able to fully participate in the world’s economy. We released 10 teaser videos for the NFT. Each shows off the art and teases the lore behind that particular immortal. Thanks to the hype surrounding the brand, our whitelists for the first two NFT drops filled up in 3.5 minutes.

“We’re here to fix the state of play in the gaming industry. We’re here to bring back everything that made games fun in the first place. To do away with pay-to-win, play-to-earn, and all the other ways the gaming industry has stripped the fun from play. In short, we’re here to create the world in which we ourselves want to play.”

TheResults

SERIES A

We helped the company secure its series-A funding

5000

We created a 5,000 person Discord community in two weeks

3.5 MINS

The whitelists for our first two NFT launches filled up in 3.5 minutes

7.3%

Our tweets earn an average engagement rate of 7.3%

45.5%

Our email newsletters average an open rate of 45.48%; vs. the gaming industry benchmark of 21.10%

The launch of NOR is ongoing; the full game platform will be released next year. But the project is off to a fantastic start with a passionate community rallying around this great idea.

NEXT CASE STUDY

Anolon

by illuminator