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How do we extend Absolut from the bar to the backyard?

Services
  • Brand Voice Augmentation
  • Content Creation
  • Front + Back-End Development
  • Mobile Strategy
  • Site Design
  • UX/UI Design

ABSOLUT Vodka is a go-to name for ordering cocktails at the bar. But when it comes to entertaining at home, beer, wine, and other spirits are also top of mind. However, celebrations are increasingly happening in personal places – houses, apartments, rooftops, and backyards – especially in the summer. So we wanted to get people thinking of ABSOLUT for all their house party needs.

Rather than simply telling people that ABSOLUT is perfect for parties at home, we decided to help them host one. By creating a useful party generating tool we were able to communicate the brand’s message and give people something valuable to use.

 

1. Toastworthy Content

People who host parties are always looking for a theme to drink to. These fun-loving people celebrate everything from a birthday to a casual summer Sunday. So, in order to get them to realize that ABSOLUT is great for entertaining at home, we played to that behavior by giving them endless occasions for summer fun. To accomplish this, we created hundreds of party names – one for every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day, plus many more for users to browse through. Not wanting to limit anyone’s imagination, we built an editing tool for users to tweak and create endless party names.

2. Cheers to YOU

Taking advantage of a key factor that differentiates personal parties from bars, the “personal” factor, we used Facebook Open Graph to pull in relevant user data to custom  fit party ideas to the user. With data like recent posts, hometown, current city, and tagged photos, we were able to tell a unique story that was specifically about the user and his or her friends.

3. Celebratory Copy

In order to successfully transition ABSOLUT from the bar to backyard, we needed to put a spin on the brand’s existing premium tone. Entertaining at home is a more casual form of partying, and the people involved put a premium on humor. By evolving the brand voice to be conversational and witty, we added a level of fun on top of the existing utility of ABSOLUT Host, which resulted in people using the site as a place to browse through entertaining content for its own sake.

4. You're invited

House parties are social. The Internet is social. So it was a given that ABSOLUT Host would be built for sharing. To reward users for creating a party, we incorporated visual elements from party invitations into the design, but also tied back to ABSOLUT’s nightlife core: a coaster. ABSOLUT Host generates this platform-friendly image along with the party ideas, which can be shared with friends across multiple social channels or imported directly into a Facebook event invite.

5. Celebrating mobile first thinking

Anyone who has planned an event knows that decisions get made on the fly. We predicted that many users would want to access little bits of the site while they were at the party (for instance, a toast they might not recall) or in store, looking for drink ideas and reasons to celebrate. So we approached design with mobile in mind from the start. A quick and intuitive experience on mobile makes it easy for users to dive in and out of the different party planning tools. In the first month, 50% of users visited the site on a mobile device.