SETTING
A NEW SCENE FOR CIDER

Delivering over 5 million video views in 8 weeks

IT’S SUMMER, IT’S SUNNY - it’s cider season. 66% of all cider sales fall during May-August, with backyards, beer gardens, and festivals packed with punters enjoying a refreshing glass. With category sales falling when the dark nights come, one of the UK’s top-selling ciders, Magners, challenged us to shift category perceptions on socials to boost winter sales and position Magners as a year-round drink.

In our discovery phase, we identified that occasion is a key driver for cider drinkers, so if we could show it to consumers in occasions outside summer, we should be able to convert. We also identified that non-cocktail drinkers are more likely to indulge in cocktails over the winter season, giving us further opportunity to convert.

So, our approach was two-fold:

Winter serves: The creation of a series of mouth-watering Magners cocktails including Mulled Cider, and Magners Spritz.
Winter occasions: Showcasing Magners fitting into various familiar winter events.

Using these themes, we set out to create a content series showing how and when people can enjoy Magners for an 8-week campaign. Shooting both in-bar and in a location house, we were able to demonstrate the versatility of Magners, and how it can be consumed in both on & off-trade moments.

The creative development, production management, art direction, shooting, and editing were managed in-house at Hydrogen, as well as work from our strategy and insights team in the initial phases.

We created over 131 pieces of content, including 40 videos for the 2-month campaign. Our video content racked up over 5.3 million views, and gained 948k organic engagements – showing our captive audience new occasions and ways to enjoy Magners. We also landed features in BBC Good Food and Sainsbury’s Food magazine.