Three Olives Vodka's influencer campaign boosts awareness 32%

Brief:

Three Olives Vodka ran a social influencer campaign that boosted brand awareness by 32% and helped to generate more than 200 million impressions among paid and organic channels, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer. The liquor brand's "Finding Otherness" campaign for the launch of a rosé-flavored vodka also increased purchase intent by more than 10%.
Three Olives worked with Arena, part of Havas Media Group, and enlisted influencer platform Linqia to partner with more than two dozen influencers who created more than 100 posts that included the #roséallday hashtag. The posts featured photographs, videos and blogs, including creative for National Wine Day and National Rosé Day. The campaign had an average engagement rate of 27%. Brand perceptions also improved among categories describing Three Olives as "high quality" and "like to be seen drinking," according to a consumer survey after the campaign.
Three Olives and Arena leveraged Linqia's technology to find the best influencers and determine which assets to activate as ads. To measure the effectiveness, Three Olives used Linqia's Intelligence Suite, a new offering being unveiled today. The cross-channel tool assesses spend on influencer marketing through key partnerships with Dynata for ad creative impact, IRI for sales lift, Foursquare and Placed for store visits and Samba TV for TV tune-in.

Insight:

The case study and product launch from Linqia point to how influencer marketing is getting more sophisticated in how it is measured and optimized, necessary developments as the spend matures and spend continues to grow. Rosé-flavored vodka may sound unconventional, and it's understandable that Three Olives would enlist social influencers to help change those perceptions about the brand extension and position it as a drink to enjoy both at night and during the day.

Three Olives worked with Linqia to find influencers who "embraced their individuality, sought out fun moments and cast boring to the wind." Linqia's PerformanceMatch service identified influencers from the lifestyle, active living, fashion, culture, DIY and beverage categories. Linqia's platform determined the best creative assets to use in 17 ads on Instagram for an initial flight and 15 ads for a second flight.

Three Olive's past marketing efforts have featured celebrities like actor Clive Owen, who appeared in a $20 million campaign in 2013 to revive growth that had slowed to 8.8% in 2011 and 3.5% in 2012. The vodka brand also licensed Marilyn Monroe's image for three years to market its strawberry-flavored vodka. Rapper Lil Kim appeared in a campaign for Three Olives' grape-flavored vodka in 2010, demonstrating the brand's shift from celebrities to lesser-known influencers in its marketing.

Liquor brands have developed influencer campaigns to reach younger adults who are more difficult to enage on traditional media platforms like TV. Among the brands that have enlisted social influencers are spirit-maker New Amsterdam, which worked with lifestyle blogger Aaron Martino to create a series of Instagram posts intended to reinforce the brand's luxury status. Heineken partnered with men's influencers including Instagrammer Eliezer Infante, clothing designers and boutiques to create a line of branded menswear. Coconut-flavored rum brand Malibu uses influencer marketing to reach consumers on social media, especially during summer months, per Beverage Daily.

However, liquor brands must also be careful to avoid campaigns that get heavy exposure among underage consumers. Last year, DJ Khaled backed off of social media posts that featured liquor brands following complaints from Truthinadvertising.org and other watchdog groups that alleged content shared by the hip-hop star was not properly labeled as advertising and that it reached minors. Following the complaints, several alcohol brands, including Bacardi and Diageo, released statements distancing themselves from Khaled.

Marketer spending on social influencer campaigns is forecast to grow this year as brands seek audiences that have shifted their media consumption to mobile devices and social media platforms. More than half (60%) of marketers said they plan to increase their social influencer budgets this year, while 30% plan to maintain them and 2.5% will cut back, according to a survey by marketing platform SocialPubli.com.