The Spirit of Comedy
Unlocking growth against a category in decline
The challenge
Dutch Barn Vodka was launching into headwinds: the UK vodka category was in decline (-3%) and the ultra-premium segment had dropped 11%. The brand relied heavily on co-owner cross-posting and product-led assets that failed to convert attention into action. With 85% of vodka purchases happening in-store, driving direct-to-consumer sales meant going against natural buying behaviour. Meanwhile, competitors like AU and Ciroc were coded as "luxury" while DBV sat at "premium craft" — and in gifting and status moments, the luxury heuristic wins. The core consumer insight was stark: vodka equals burn or nothing in most minds. We needed to break that default, make people taste the difference, and give them a reason to buy direct.
Our approach
We designed and delivered a year-long, full-funnel programme coordinating multiple teams across creative, social, influencer, paid media, and DTC optimisation. The strategy was built on three connected pillars: Fame, Flavour, and Function. Fame — We built "Spirit of Comedy" as a creator-led content engine tied to live comedy shows, anchored by Ricky Gervais. The goal was to raise share-of-search, compress CAC, and create retail mental availability across DTC, Amazon, and on-trade. Consumer research showed that family and friends were the second-largest purchase driver after in-store, and the brand was inherently talkable — so we leaned into peer-to-peer reach through entertainment, not ads.
We shipped ~400 high-velocity, human-led short-form posts across Instagram, TikTok, and X in 15 weeks, with explicit cross-pollination tactics pairing social spikes with paid conversion pushes. Flavour — We attacked the "burn or nothing" heuristic head-on with a UGC engine focused on taste tests, unboxing, first-sip moments, ASMR pours, and two-ingredient rituals. Cherry and Raspberry were hero'd as flavour shortcuts, with Ginger positioned as news. The brief was simple: prove it tastes of something in five seconds. Function — We overhauled the DTC experience. PDPs were redesigned as the new first impression for cold social traffic — 90% mobile, sub-3-second attention window. We shifted from price-led to value-led incentives: a tiered free-gift structure (speed pourer, bar blade, jigger) gave tangible reasons to buy direct, while a competition entry at checkout (Ricky Gervais tickets) reduced cart-stage abandonment. The incentive ladder reframed "add another bottle" as a reward, not a sale.
We designed explicit cross-pollination tactics to ensure content momentum converted into commercial outcomes. Social spikes from Spirit of Comedy and creator content were paired with paid conversion pushes, driving traffic to optimised PDPs across DTC and Amazon. 321 unique authors generated 499 organic mentions reaching ~73.7M potential impressions — turning the campaign into a cultural conversation beyond our owned channels. Ricky-led fame content primed the purchase, flavour UGC created mid-funnel intent, and the restructured DTC offer closed the sale. The full-funnel view — Audience to Fame to Flavour to Function — meant every piece of content had a downstream job. Nothing existed in isolation. The programme ran as a coordinated system across multiple teams for 12 months, compounding reach, trust, and conversion throughout.