The Coronavirus crisis has had a devastating impact on a broad range of industries. But perhaps one that has been more affected than most is the hospitality sector, as clubs, bars and restaurants closed their doors and parties across the world were suddenly put on hold.

Thankfully, in the absence of physical gatherings, brands stepped in to fill the gaps, to support local businesses and keep people partying, even when they were physically separated. One such offering came from a collaborative partnership of German drinks brand Jägermeister and creative agency ENGINE who formed a global plan in just 24 hours, bringing their offices in both Berlin and London together, to keep their 'meisters' performing and their audience entertained.

Out of that plan came Save the Night, a global initiative to support both the nightlife community and its fans. The campaign not only connected consumers with entertainers, but it also offered a crucial lifeline to those whose livelihoods were under threat by the crisis, from drag queens to mixologists, DJs to musicians. This was a network of artists, the 'meisters', that Jägermeister has been building up and working with for years.

In the latest CB Explores session, Nicola Kemp, Editorial Director of Creativebrief spoke to Head of Global Brand Management & Digital Marketing for Jägermeister Tim Jerg and ENGINE’s Client Managing Director Daisy Domenghini.

As Kemp opened with, the coronavirus crisis has had, and continues to have, both an “economic and emotional impact on the industry and the individuals within it.” It was this impact that the ENGINE campaign for Jägermeister set out to try and lessen. As Jerg said of the brand: “Nightlife is a matter of heart to us.”

Don’t go dark during a crisis

To go dark during a crisis is, as the advice professes, a dangerous and potentially business-threatening decision to make. Turn off your marketing and you run the risk of losing your share of voice in the industry you operate in. But how to speak to an audience when your entire industry has been shuttered indefinitely? And what is the right tone to take?

While a number of brands went into shutdown, others, like Jägermeister used this moment to make more noise than ever. As Jerg explained, the campaign was “a very initial reaction from us to say, we need to help.” The whole company unanimously agreed. “It was obvious: we wanted to do something, and we needed to do something,” he added.

There were lots of ideas being thrown around by the teams as they tried to find something that was the connecting point. That became Save the Night, “the umbrella proposition” or “measure stick” as Domenghini explained. It became an organising thought that allowed the team to establish what ideas worked and what didn’t.

The teams worked directly alongside one another. As Domenghini added, “having an open dialogue on this topic just allowed us to move at speed.” The teams realised that they needed to support both the network of artists they work with and the consumers themselves. While nightlife is nothing without the creatives behind it, the brand is nothing without its consumers.

The simplicity of the idea was key, says Domenghini as that encouraged the cross-agency/client teams to get behind it. And so, the drop-ins were born, individual sessions which people could book to experience DJ sets, cocktail masterclasses or photography workshops. But each was kept personal, so those booking could choose the time they wanted to drop in and the friends they wanted to bring along. As Domenghini explained, the brand still wanted to “keep that very personal, nightlife experience going.”

Within 24 hours the prototype had been built by the tech team within ENGINE, giving Jerg something he could take to his teams internally and demonstrate the idea in action. As Domenghini adds, the question at the heart of the Save the Night campaign was as simple as “how do we bring entertainment to people at home?”

An injection of creative oxygen

“When there’s a time limit, it actually focuses the mind and it can help bring people together to all work towards that common good,” explained Domenghini, who believes that the speed at which the team worked on this campaign led to many learnings. Not only was the ENGINE team working between Berlin and London, a system that has been in place since the agency was first appointed, but they were also communicating with colleagues across the US and Czech Republic.

Domenghini explains that it “didn’t feel unnatural for us” to be operating entirely online because they’ve been using Zoom since the start of the relationship. But “being used to those platforms was a really good starting point.” The familiarity with the online tools only allowed them to work more efficiently and collaboratively, both essential when developing, executing and launching a campaign in lockdown.

As Domenghini says, “the world was constantly changing.” No one knew how long lockdown would last for or even what it meant, particularly because it carried different meanings in different countries around the world. “We couldn’t rest on our laurels because we had to move, we had to have a response,” she added.

As the campaign was being rolled out across many markets at speed, Domenghini admits that “the creative process probably wasn’t your traditional one.” Once the idea was floated, everyone across the company bought in because, while Save the Night might be a new context, the idea itself, says Jerg, “felt very authentic to Jägermeister and what we usually do.”

An experience-deprived community

In the experience-deprived world of global lockdown, Jägermeister worked to recreate the missing experiences on a different platform and in a different way. The target audience, those aged between 18 and 29 were, says Domenghini “all about experiences.”

With this campaign, the aim was not to introduce anything new but rather to “build on the behaviours they already had and bring them that really interesting experience at home,” she explains. That’s why the campaign has resonated with that audience and why it has been a success: “it’s giving them a choice of experiences.”

For Domenghini, the campaign captures what the brand’s core message: “we’re giving them moments they’ll never forget and that’s what Best Nights has always been about; those moments of togetherness that you’ll never be able to recreate again.”

For Jerg it is not only about the experiences given to the consumer but also the support they provide to each creative, each ‘meister’. Because, as he says, “if you are a creative, you need an audience. It releases you; it liberates you.” It was, says Jerg, an obvious space in which the brand could operate because, “the brand got bigger together with those people.” There’s a relationship there that matters.

Relinquishing control

That relationship meant that when it came to the campaign’s execution, the team placed full trust in the ‘meisters’ leaving it up to them to decide if and when they wanted to be free for the drop ins. As Jerg said, “we put a lot of confidence into our meisters.”

Both the meisters and the consumers were the ones in control; the team were there, as Domenghini explains, almost just as tech support in the background. “We’re giving them the platform,” she adds. Jerg explains further: “There was a lot of trust that we gave into the hands of our colleagues and into the hands of our creatives and of course, last but not least, to the audience because they were the ones to experience it.” This was, he adds, “something we’re not really used to.”

Happily, the team only received positive feedback; there was “not one negative voice anywhere,” Jerg adds. The ‘meisters’ are “already an authentic voice” for the brand, says Domenghini. They’re a community that the brand has been investing in for years and as such feels compelled to trust and support in the midst of a crisis. The brand’s support of the ‘meisters’ feels completely authentic to its core purpose, aligning importantly with their inherent values.

Culture of collaboration

The collaborative approach is not only important between brand and creative community but also with the agency it chooses to work with. Jerg refers to the relationship with ENGINE as more of a partnership; the teams know each other so there’s already a trust in-built into the way the teams operate. “We’ve got here together, and we can talk honestly to each other. That’s basically as simple as it is,” says Domenghini.

Throughout the process of developing and launching Save the Night, the teams remained in regular contact, ensuring that every conversation was both open and honest. “If you’re ever holding things back then you’re never going to have a true relationship,” she adds.

For Jerg, focus and transparency is key. Within this process, he saw a “willingness to collaborate” both between client and agency but also within each business, colleague to colleague. Building up the team for Jerg is at the heart of a successful campaign and partnership. If everyone is involved and informed at the beginning, they’ll all unify behind the idea.

Jerg explains: “Listen to yourself and listen to your team. Bring the best and biggest team around these initiatives and they will make it happen. In the very end this is a team effort. It’s not enough to have a good idea.”

As an industry, nightlife has been under pressure for years; the COVID crisis has only intensified this economic and emotional struggle. As the brand’s heartland, Jerg says they will continue to support nightlife and those who drive it. As he says, “the night opens up so much creativity and imagination and we all love it. That’s what we are there for.”

To watch the full interview, visit the dedicated Creativebrief Explores page.

Tune in at 2pm on Thursday 23^rd July to hear how Football Beyond Borders and Dark Horses turned to virtual worlds to build connections.