Hunting for the "barrel" Jack Daniel's

About the project

Jack Daniel's "Barrel Hunt" project was an entertaining (non-educational) part of the brand’s 150th anniversary promotional campaign. We sought to convey the message that in a world of fast changes and fleeting trends, the values and the generations-old distilling process of Jack Daniels have been remained a tried and true constant for a century and a half.

Adaptation of global mechanics

Our task was to bring the message of the global campaign to a large Ukrainian audience. The global campaign included a scavenger hunt in each city or small country for a special barrel of whiskey, with clues revealed on Facebook.  We reasoned that in this form, the scavenger hunt would be too simple and too strict for Ukraine’s large base of loyal JD customers, and redesigned it as a full-scale online quest with interesting puzzles that lead to clues. The quest had a special website (http://barrelhunt.stage.ebola.com.ua/), which was promoted via online advertisements and Facebook.

Results

Of the 160,000 unique site visitors, as many as 6.4% met the minimum age and other necessary registration requirements. Of the 10,205 registered competitors, 17% successfully solved all seven puzzles, with an average session time of 33 minutes.

Jack Daniels’ audience expressed in hundreds of comments and posts on Facebook their deep interest in and even gratitude for the opportunity to challenge themselves through the contest’s puzzles.

This unique quest was supported by a media campaign, which was extremely successful due to the use of non-standard formats, careful planning, and creative implementation. The actual number of views exceeded the projected number by 24%, clicks by 72%, and coverage by 32%.