According to Beefeater marketing manager Grant Hendricks, the gin category continues to boom with the spirit's widespread appeal driven by both occasion and liquid versatility, value and shareability.

"Beefeater had experienced good growth during the boom but wanted to aggressively gain more traction as several competing brands waivered in the second half of 2021," says Hendricks. "This presented us with an opportunity to increase our influence."

The duo says that a key part of the strategy and go-to-market plan was to partner with local relevant voices to not only tell but show consumers what 'City Stories' meant to them. RAPT Creative partnered with South African macro and micro-influencers who embodied the 'Spirit of London'.

Rouge and Priddy Ugl were engaged to assist the agency with content creation via photo and video shoots, as well as event appearances and posts on Instagram and Twitter. Other influencers — including Foyin Og, Nkuley and Cherrified — were tasked with attending events and posting regularly on the same platforms.

The second prong of the campaign was to partner with content creator Azee Green to amplify Beefeater's participation in Airmax Day. She was tasked with documenting the day using the Beefeater 'City Stories' lens and compiling 10 Instagram stories and one grid post.

"Our final task was to amplify the brand's position at the Gin & Tonic Festival in Cape Town and support the week-long programme of activations we had organised, including a dinner event hosted by master distiller Desmon Payne. For this component of the campaign, we partnered with key local influencers who attended the events, created Instagram stories and tweeted all week long," says RAPT Creative's divisional head of PE and influencer Khangelani Dziba.

While the budget was challenging, the agency says that it achieved considerable success. For 'City Stories' and Airmax Day alone, the Instagram engagement rate exceeded the industry average while the total number of impressions and total reach on that platform topped 1.5 million.

As expected, Twitter delivered in line with the industry average and, while influencers were not required to utilise Facebook, one of the content partners did and achieved an engagement rate that exceeded the industry average by 8%.

"We were very pleased with the results achieved by RAPT Creative and its content partners. So much so, that we have tasked the agency with re-imagining 'The Spirit of London' for the brand during the second half of 2022," concludes Hendricks.

For more information, visit www.raptcreative.com. You can also follow RAPT Creative on Facebook or on Instagram.