With the goal of optimizing the advertising costs for the product Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Diageo, the world’s largest distilled beverage manufacturer, invested in the use of artificial intelligence. Through Vidmob, the leading global platform in AI-based creative performance that uses data analysis to boost marketing results for major brands, Diageo achieved a 68.8% reduction in the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of its campaign.
The campaign ‘Deserves a Blue,’ with videos on Instagram and Facebook, aimed to expand the product’s unique message to admirers and consumers of Blue Label whisky. Associated with a sophisticated lifestyle, the Scottish beverage has been gaining increasing popularity in Brazil. Data from the Scotch Whisky Association reveals that the country has become the fourth-largest market for Scotch whisky in the world, with 215.2% growth post-pandemic.
In the case of the Johnnie Walker Blue Label campaign, Vidmob’s exclusive tool analyzed, frame by frame, all elements present in the video creatives during their broadcast on Meta’s social networks, as well as the over 39.5 million user impressions, such as reactions, comments, and shares.
As a recommendation for Diageo, Vidmob suggested starting the creatives with impactful messages. As in the initial guidelines for ‘Deserves a Blue,’ the uniqueness argument—with messages like ‘Only one in every 10,000 barrels can deliver the taste of Blue Label’ and ‘A blend made with the most extraordinary Scotch whiskies’—was 8.09% higher using videos up to 15 seconds long.
However, the argument about how it’s made—with the message ‘Serve 45 ml of Blue Label in a whisky glass without ice’—performed excellently with shorter creatives, reaching a 9.76% CPM.
Colors also played key roles in the insights generated by Vidmob. Throughout the campaign, warm yellow tones did not resonate well with Blue Label messages. The recommendation was to use gold at the beginning of the creatives but prioritize blue in scenes from the middle to the end, achieving a 30.11% gain in CPM.
‘With Vidmob’s AI, we realized that the gold color, common in all whiskies, was not as impactful as the color blue. With these insights, we could focus on the key creative recommendations for the campaign while optimizing media investment in our ads. Notably, replacing gold with blue improved performance,’ says Lindsay Stefani, Head of Media, Data, Growth, and Brand Experience at Diageo. ‘In other words: the use of AI provided actionable insights for the creative team in a highly efficient partnership for this groundbreaking campaign.’
Animations featuring scenes focused solely on the movement of the liquid achieved low performance in the new campaign, with a drop in CPM. To reverse this situation, Vidmob recommended prioritizing images of the bottle highlighting the glass and Blue Label.
‘Vidmob has powered campaigns for major brands, and it was no different with Blue Label’s media actions. The videos already running on social networks achieved even more impressive results after the insights generated by our Artificial Intelligence. Images like the bottle, for example, make more sense in those few seconds that need to capture attention and captivate the audience,’ says Miguel Caeiro, Head Latam at Vidmob. ‘It’s important to highlight that with the reduction in CPM, it’s possible to optimize campaigns, expanding brand reach and reaching a larger number of people more effectively.’
