Malaysian Media Awards Winners Showcase

The Challenges
Despite being the leading stout brand in Malaysia, more consumers are increasingly inclined to authentic new beers recently. Increasingly, Guinness has only been catering to older drinkers with a palate for strong stout, and missing out in recruiting younger consumers who have a repertoire of lighter alcoholic beverages to choose from. Hence, to recruit new drinkers, Guinness came up “Guinness Bright”, with lighter blends of flavours such as lemongrass, ginger and coffee. The task for media was to raise awareness levels in a dark market category with severe media restrictions.

Insight, Strategy and the Idea
Our strategy was rooted in the media principles outlined by Sharp’s “How Brands Grow” – to maintain presence, broad reach and exposure through three key mediums: 1. Newspaper – Despite restrictions, we had to derive a smart way to create impact through its front cover 2. Digital – The core of the campaign to drive high reach through social media and programmatic. 3. Activation – A consumer catered activation to drive buzz and participation.

Media Execution
We’ve partnered with SinChew – the leading daily Chinese newspaper, to create an impactful newspaper ad with a highly prominent placement – front cover. We leveraged on SinChew’s high credibility to help Guinness create “trustworthiness” against the target audience. Due to limitations of alcohol advertising, the front cover was accompanied by a page 3 ad, teasing readers to uncover the new Guinness Bright reveal on the 3rd page.

Results and Effectiveness
1. Campaign managed to achieve 60% Multimedia Reach during the 1st month of launch.
2. According to TNS Brand Study,
a. Overall, equity scored at 5.94 during launch, and increased to 6.07 in the second month
b. Brand awareness increased from 18% to 21%.
c. Distinctive brand image increased from 18% to 19%
d. Seen as progressive brand, scores increased from 18% to 31%
e. Young audience (18-34) base increased from 67% to 71%