Unfudged
Baileys
Issue 50 | February 2019
Agency
VMLY&R
Creative Team
Executive Creative Director Harsh Kapadia Associate Creative Director Sarah Glover Senior Creatives Anuj Shah, Denesh Agnihotri Creatives Chris Hart, Peter Higgins
Production Team
Editorial Content Director Christian Love Senior Producer Carmela Vitale Production Assistant Elena Di Maria Senior Digital Strategist Mark Linford Production Company Dark Energy Films Media Agency Carat
Other Credits
European Marketing Director Laura Pearce European Marketing Manager Lindsay MacDonald Global Marketing Director Jennifer English Global Content Marketing David Heaney Other Head of Client Engagement Marcus Keith Business Director Florence Ospici Senior Account Manager Trishika Ramrakha Connections Director Matt Lei Senior Connections Managers Alyssa Murfrey, Tom Anguiano Analyst, Strategy & Insights Liza Saracini
Date
October 2018
Background
Globally, there were over 36 million baking searches in the last quarter of 2018, with popular hashtags such as #bakingfail, #NailedIt, #ExpectationVsReality recording the highs and lows of baking experiments.
In addition, social mentions of baking and treating are growing 90% YoY.
Idea
Based on data and an analysis of how people seek assistance online when baking goes wrong, a series of recipe videos and articles were created to answer these searches, tailored to the top baking fails while including Baileys as the key ingredient.
In one 20-second video, a cake that went horribly wrong was transformed with some fruit, a sprinkling of nuts and a good splashing of Baileys into a Baileys Almande Vegan Trifle.
In another, a failed sponge cake becomes a Baileys cheesecake.
Results
Unknown
Our Thoughts
I have history with Baileys. It has always done well at Christmas but how do you get its largely female target audience to buy the stuff outside December? Thirty years ago, I wrote a TV commercial in which we suggested Baileys with ice was nice. And it worked, for a time. So, congratulations first to London agency Mother for a strategy that took Baileys out of the glass and into dessert bowls and bakes. And similar congrats to the newly amalgamated VMLY&R London for seeing within the data just how many baking fails there are and getting Baileys to be there to help transform those botched bakes into culinary triumphs. Also how neat to launch these little How To tips during the TV show “The Great British Bake Off” in the knowledge many viewers would have second screens open.
This campaign is a lot cleverer than it might look.