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Knowing When
To Unplug

Jack Daniels

Client

Jack Daniels

project

UK Digital Agency

The Start

Nine years, 176 bands &
an award winning site

From 2002 to 2011 our office produced all of Jack Daniel’s UK digital work. As our relationship matured like a fine bourbon we were asked to work on international campaigns, some covering 50 countries. And from there we went on to create websites and apps for many other brands belonging to JD’s parent company, Brown Forman, including Southern Comfort, Chambord, Woodford Reserve and El Jimador Tequila. But let’s go back to the start...

The Music

A legendary line up

In 2002 Jack Daniel’s asked us to build a website for their soon to launch music platform, The JD Set. The now legendary gig series ran for nine years in both the UK and USA, with arena-sized bands such as Elbow, Paul Weller, and the iconic Patti Smith, playing in bar-sized venues. As clamour grew from other countries we launched Facebook’s first ever DRM streams, showing the live events to an international audience. Five years in we rebuilt the site, and were lucky enough to pick up an MCCA award for Best Art Direction.

1/5

The Games

300,000 snowballs
in one day

Over the next few years we built a number of interactive experiences to aid JD’s wider marketing campaigns. The most successful of these was Snowball Fight, a global Facebook game that allowed players to take aim at the photo of a friend or enemy they’d attached to the head of a snowman. 300,000 snowballs were thrown the first day the app went live in the UK! After this rip-roaring start we launched the game internationally in 14 languages.

A whole lot
of hustle

Having proved our mettle with The JD Set website, we were asked to create an online game for the Round Up Your Friends campaign. We designed and built a real-time, multiplayer pool game which featured a practice room, time trial game and multiplayer lobby. Its success led to us developing a 3D mobile app version.

And the trip to Tennessee

Who needs
a Plan B?

Every September we were charged with launching Jack Daniel’s birthday celebrations. In 2011 these were taking place in his home state of Tennessee, with a special performance from East London soulboy and rapper, Plan B.

Our campaign site announced the competition to win an invite, challenging groups of four to perform three tasks for a seat on the plane. The tasks were to scan a QR code on a bottle of the signature bourbon, take a quiz on the master distiller and sink the balls on our Pool Hall Hustle game. Every completed task gave another entry into the prize draw, with high scores on Pool Hall Hustle earning you further entries.

Tens of thousands of entries later, the lucky winners headed to America’s deep south for a party like no other. And somehow, we managed to hitch a ride!

Like the bourbon,
results improved with age

Going out with a
3,859% bang!

While our creativity was a big part of why Jack Daniel's stayed with us for nine years, ultimately it was the results that mattered.

And we were still smashing benchmarks when our partnership ended. In our final two years working with them, traffic to the Birthday campaign site doubled (with 12,000 visitors a day at its peak), while year-on-year traffic to the JD Set website increased by 2,035% in 2008 and a staggering 3,859% in 2009.