BYO cup day
7-eleven - Slurpee
Issue 24 | September 2012
Agency
Leo Burnett Melbourne
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director: Jason Williams Copywriter: Andrew Woodhead, Elle Bullen, Eamonn Dixon Art Director: James Orr
Other Credits
Client: 7-Eleven Media: OMD Digital and Social Build: Rodeo PR: Haystac
Date
September 2011
Background
Slurpee had always been a different kind of drink. It allowed people to pour, mix and fill their cup any way they liked. But in 2011 more and more copycat competitors entered the Australian frozen drink market. This included an aggressive advertising push from Coca-cola that threatened the brand’s number one position. Slurpee needed to remind drinkers why they loved the brand. They needed to make themselves different again.
Idea
On September 21 2011, Australians were given a unique opportunity to engage with the brand in a completely different way. ‘Bring Your Own Cup’ Day, was the first time customers were not restricted to the small, medium or large cups available in-store. In fact, they weren’t restricted to a cup at all.
The campaign began on Slurpee’s Facebook page with the question, “If you could fill up any cup with Slurpee what would it be?”
It was not long before people started seeing potential cups everywhere. The most original suggestions formed an in-store, outdoor and print campaign, further inspiring people’s creativity in the lead up to the big day.
On September 21, 2011 mainstream and online media covered the event, which saw customers at all 650 stores nationwide drinking out of buckets, watering cans, dog bowls, helmets and prosthetic legs, all for the price of a regular Slurpee.
Results
No results available
Our Thoughts
As is so often the case with big successes like this, there would have been more reasons not to do it than to do it.
Most middle-managers in most FMCG companies would have baulked at the idea of people paying for a Regular Slurpee and filling up a bath with the stuff.
It was the fact that some people did go to extremes that made the idea work. It dramatised and celebrated the passion they had for the brand. Okay, their greed.
Most middle-managers would also have hated the thought that they would have no control over what was going to happen, nor how their own staff would respond to toilet bowls, buckets, hats, flower pots….
Fortunately most middle-managers weren’t working at Slurpee when Leo Burnett Melbourne showed up with their artbag.