Putting Meantime back on the map –
and on taps – in London.
Meantime Brewing Company
The challenge
Craft beer brand Meantime – brewed in the home of Time, Greenwich – had once been a staple of London pubs, but years of underinvestment in favour of global brands meant it had become a distant memory, both to drinkers and publicans.
A group of passionate beer lovers at Asahi UK asked us to help Meantime regain relevance and regain listings at London pubs.
Strategy
To drive trial and reappraisal of Meantime – especially by the trade – we knew we had to give people a time, place and reason to drink it, and publicans a reason to stock it. As an occasion we latched onto the decline of after work drinks. A once proud London institution that was ailing in a post-pandemic, flexible working world.
With our budget and ailing brand awareness, we knew we couldn’t afford to be boring, so we set out to be deliberately provocative and London-centric to garner attention. The insight that Londoners work more hours than anyone else in the country gave us the excuse to reward the capital’s workers.
What real people think
“In London, Thursday drinks are one of the main reasons to come into town. Liquid lunches have died a death, but you can’t beat clocking off early for a cheeky pint with your workmates.”
The idea
The London Bunk Holiday
Because Londoners work three weeks more than the rest of the country, and we’d just had the last real bank holiday of the year, we thought Londoners deserved a break with the Meantime ‘London Bunk Holiday.’
A series of Thursday afternoons off, from 3pm-5pm, where you can close your laptop, put your phone on silent, and enjoy a well-earned pint at your local with your mates.
An idea so controversial that TFL wouldn’t let us run it for fear of encouraging absenteeism. Eat your heart out, Ricky Gervais.
What we made
Launch video
Our primary audience worked in the City of London, so we decided to appeal directly to them by speaking their language: corporate jargon. We recruited the help of comedian Jake Lambert to help us lampoon corporate life and let the gilet-wearing-brigade know how to get their free pints.
OOH 6-sheets and ad vans
When you’ve got a simple message, you keep it simple. We used OOH and roving ad vans to spread the two greatest words in the English Language: FREE BEER. These sat inside our corporate calendar themed visual world, where the hours of the Bunk Holiday were represented by a pint-shaped meeting invite.
Sampling and email marketing
Keeping on the theme of bunking off work, we had hit squads all over London in eye-grabbing half business/half holiday attire, handing out lanyards to attend our weekly meeting down the pub. By signing up people received weekly email reminders, as well as calendar invites disguised as “Liquid Asset Stakeholder Alignment” to fob off any prying eyes.
Live event and content
PR
To reward those who snuck out of work with even more than just a pint, we threw a surprise live comedy event, featuring our hero comedian Jake Lambert, as well as a host of up-and-coming stand-ups, who drew crowds into the pub while they lambasted corporate life. This acted as a staging ground for us to capture content, to further promote the London Bunk Holiday.
Our PR partners picked up the headline of Londoners working harder than the rest of the country and ran with it. Paired with our incongruous business/casual sampling staff uniforms, they got the campaign talked about in all the right places.
Value unlocked
“The Ninety-Niners have helped us develop a new brand strategy, identity, creative campaign and website. Their attention to detail and quality of their output to date has been spot on. They do what they say they will and are very methodical in their approach, I'd highly recommend based on our experience.”
— Darren Miller, Marketing Director at Big Motoring World
Value unlocked
In all, 15 pubs participated in the promotion, giving away an average of 60 free pints per pub to people who likely wouldn’t have been drinking Meantime. Especially true in the EIGHT pubs that were brand new listings for Meantime: massively improving the brand’s footprint in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible without the promotion.
Social media content received 7.4 million impressions, with a CPM of £2.88. PR Coverage in 16 titles garnered an additional reach estimated to be 86 million. Brand tracking showed that “Positive buzz” around the brand hit its highest level in 3 years. With plans to run the Bunk Holiday annually, watch this space as we take over the city.