3 Minutes 
How Corby Used Automated Quantitative Research to Integrate the Voice of the Customer Throughout the Campaign Development Process
The Challenge
One of Canada’s best-selling whisky brands, J.P. Wiser’s, wanted to inspire Canadians nationwide to put the same time and care into their friendships as they put into their whisky.
To do so, the brand established a team of agency partners from different disciplines at the onset of campaign planning, including the thread woven through the campaign planning process, Sago’s quantitative marketing testing and optimization platform, Methodify. The agency team devised the idea to produce the first completely user-generated campaign for J.P. Wiser’s, offering consumers the opportunity to publicly toast their friends on billboards, radio, and social media.
Not knowing what kind of toasts it would receive and what channels to best communicate this in, Corby engaged Methodify to help design and refine one of the most hyper-personalized campaigns ever launched in the alcohol industry, Hold it High. By using Methodify to bring the voice of the customer in more often throughout development, the campaign was ultimately designed “for consumers, by consumers”.
Our Solution
Since results can be delivered within one to two days, each agency partner was able to integrate consumer insights immediately into their plans. Rather than hinder creative development, the research instead acted as an accelerator. Testing included:
- Territory test: Tested various creative territories to determine which direction resonated most with the target customer segments.
- Tactical execution testing: Examined which tactics within the winning territory were most desired by the target, in both English and French.
Using an agile research platform like Methodify to make data-driven decisions throughout the marketing process:
- Gave the J.P. Wiser’s marketing team information that they may not have tested with consumers otherwise. For example, they wouldn’t have tested concept territories prior to engaging an agile market research platform, yet this proved to be critical as key decision makers at Corby were split on the initial territories presented;
- Helped prioritize the online, offline, and experiential tactics used in the campaign based on consumers’ feedback.
“Methodify gave us the speed to bring the customer into the boardroom.”
– Keeshan Selvakumar, Brand Director, Corby
Result
Aside from seeing strong growth trends continue, the most meaningful campaign results have come from the personal stories and impact the brand has had on people’s relationships—from a proposal on a billboard in Toronto to a live cross-border toast to the American-Canadian friendship, involving 50 people on both sides of the border in Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, the home of J.P. Wiser’s distillery.
In fact, some of the strongest engagement rates have been of people taking pictures next to their toasts on transit shelter ads and billboards. The use of Methodify enabled a truly engaging and customer-oriented campaign.
