Bot Friends Powered by ‘WhatsApp’
ABinBev
Issue 48 | September 2018
Agency
DDB Worldwide Colombia
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer Leo Macias Creative Directors Andre´s Restrepo “LAMA”, Pipe Jaimes, Juan Ca´rdenas, Carlos Agudo Content Alejandra Acosta Copywriters Alex Sierra, Felipe Cendales, Oscar Lo´pez, Fredy Castro, Daniela Prieto Graphic Designers Nestor Benjumea, Camilo Go´mez, Carolina Pa´ez, Diego Betancour, Andre´s Torres.
Production Team
Production company DragonFly Technology Big Holding
Other Credits
CEO Borja de la Plaza Planning VP Jorge Becerra Planner Carlos Correa Account Directors Natalia Herna´ndez / Natalia Fuentes Account Executives Catalina Co´rdoba / Natalia Rojas / Daniel Salazar
Date
March 2018
Background
Poker beer had stood for friendship since 1929 but the nature of friendship had changed since then. People no longer gathered in front of the TV, they congregated in WhatsApp groups. But if Poker wanted to join them there, they couldn’t because WhatsApp doesn’t allow advertising. It is fully encrypted to keep brands at bay.
Idea
The challenge was to find a way for Poker beer to hack its way into WhatsApp and become friends with their consumers on the platform.
The way the brand did it was by buying hundreds of telephone numbers and printing these on the inside of 160 million beer bottle caps.
Bots were created with different personalities for each one of those lines so the fun for drinkers was finding out what sort of friend they got when they added the numbers to their WhatsApp account. Maybe they got the bouncer friend, who could let them into the trendy clubs for free. Or maybe they got a beautiful (female) Instagrammer, a truck driver who delivered beers, or maybe they even got to be friends with celebrity Chuck Norris.
Results
The promotion lasted a month. In that time, it collected seven billion media impressions. From 100 monthly engagements, Poker beer got 32 million interactions. Six million friends were made helping sales increase by 12.5%, or over 200 million beers.
Our Thoughts
This is another idea in which the brand has been downright cunning and conniving to get to its target audience. Usually, they’d be irritated, maybe even angry. But because no-one’s ever done it before, because it’s innovative and because it’s fun, Poker drinkers loved it.
Millennials expect innovation these days. Doing new and interesting things to amuse, entertain or even startle your customers is pretty close to being a pre-condition for alcohol brands today. Because Poker are offering an experience beyond and above just sampling the product, they’re going to be the preferred choice. Until someone else comes up with something innovative and fun.