V Battle Carts
Frucor Beverages
Issue 29 | December 2013
Agency
Colenso BBDO
Creative Team
Creative Chairman Nick Worthington Digital Creative Director Aaron Turk Creative Team Jesse Stevens Beth O’Brien Agency Producers Scott Chapman Katie Knight Amanda Theobald Digital Production Paul Headington Geoff Joe Matt Visser Craig McGregor Adam Wood Colenso Experiential Lucy Grigg Nicky Garland
Production Team
Film Production 8Com Director Andy Morton Activation Production Rollercoaster Greg Skinner Music ‘I am rabbit’ – Proud Scum Sound Design Franklin Road
Other Credits
Account Team Tim Ellis Samantha Parsons Chloe Fagence Planning Director Andy McLeish Media Agency OMD PR Agency Beat Communications Marketing Manager Energy Luke Rive Senior Brand Manager Energy Cormac Van Den Hoofdakker Assistant Brand Manager V Engagement Becky Oliver
Date
September 2013
Background
Frucor Beverages' V Energy was launched in New Zealand in 1997 and has become the leading energy drink in the country with over 60% of market share.
Its success is based on the brand's ability to find captivating new ways to show the transformational effects of V Energy and get its core consumers actively involved.
Idea
"How to improve the game of golf" by V Energy
Step 1 Remove everything boring
Step 2 Realise there's nothing left but golf carts
Step 3 Give the golf carts new suspension, grunty engines and roll cages, disguise them as golf balls and then set them loose on a pristine golf course to chase a radio-controlled hole
This was the logic behind Frucor's new venture into the world of sports: V Battle Carts.
V Battle Carts was launched to the country via a social, TV, radio and activation campaign. The campaign culminated in a competition where towns across New Zealand competed for their chance to host an event where V drinkers were allowed to get behind the wheel of the Battle Carts for a day of lawn-ruining action.
Towns competed furiously to host the day by creating an event on Facebook and then promoting it to their communities. The small town of Matamata in the Waikato, eventually won.
Results
- Over 75 unique Facebook events were created with more than 70,000 people invited to attend.
- The winning entry was a small town called Matamata.
- 23% of the town's population registered on Facebook to 'attend' the Matamata event (over 2,700 people) and 1,100 tickets were distributed
- 12,000 new fans signed up to V's Facebook page during the campaign period.
Our Thoughts
What do teenagers/young adults find utterly boring? Golf. What do their Dads do at weekends? Golf. What represents the antithesis of everything they stand for because it’s slow, because you have to wear horrible clothes, because there are so many rules? Golf. What alien activity would you most like to ridicule, trash or subvert? Exactly. Golf.
The strategy (to mix go-kart racing with an assault on middle-class, middle-aged mores) is spot on (well done the planners!) and the creative execution is hilarious. It must have been fabulous to actually race one of the golf-ball buggies but it’s still a lot of fun watching the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YVeSNFcTGY
Further evidence too of Colenso BBDO’s position as one of the world’s leading creative agencies.