Smirnoff Africa
The Double Side
CD & Photographer @ 72&Sunny, AmsterdamTo launch Smirnoff's new Double Black vodka in Africa, we had to overcome the challenge that our male target audience traditionally associated Smirnoff as a "ladies drink". Our solution was to uncover and leverage a unique truth- that African males often double up their homes and workplaces as something completely different after sundown.
Fun Fact The high-energy campaign launched in Kenya and was so successful, Kenyan males managed to drink Africa's entire supply of Double-Black. The launch market alone, crushed Diageo’s yearly sales goal for all of Africa in a matter of months.
Fun Fact The high-energy campaign launched in Kenya and was so successful, Kenyan males managed to drink Africa's entire supply of Double-Black. The launch market alone, crushed Diageo’s yearly sales goal for all of Africa in a matter of months.
Full length launch film above. A few cut downs below.
The campaign film launched in clubs, online and on TV. Other campaign elements included: online-videos, OOH, POS, social, and a branded event toolkit.
To seed the brand in male culture even further, we commissioned famous Kenyan musician MadTraxx to remix the film’s song and share his progress on social-media. Which got picked up in even more clubs, and help Diageo sell out of the product.
You can’t make a campaign for Africa without first understanding the beautiful continent. We visited and immersed ourselves in the culture of Nairobi and Lagos, I took photos, drank with the locals, and ate Goat head soup. I then turned the photos and all we learned into 200 ‘double sided’ zines that were used as culture reference by Diageo Global and our broader team working on Smirnof Africa. Sample of pages below:
The Kenyan Side
The Nigerian Side
