Title	MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Brand	DIAGEO
Product/Service	VIRTUAL GIFT TAG
Category	C02. Web Service / App
Entrant	DARE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	DARE London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Rod Sobral	Dare Digital Limited	Global Chief Creative Officer
Rob Kavanagh	Dare Digital Limited	Executive Creative Director
Arnaldo Boico	Dare Digital Limited	Creative Director
Michelle Charlton	Dare Digital Limited	Head of Design
Charlie Phipps	Dare Digital Limited	Design
Henry Cruickshank	Dare Digital Limited	Design
Jack Payne	Dare Digital Limited	Experience & Strategy
Aarti Dodhia	Dare Digital Limited	Experience & Strategy
Clara Carbajo	Dare Digital Limited	Experience & Strategy
Jessica Dacchille	Dare Digital Limited	Account Director
Tom Linford-Grayson	Dare Digital Limited	Account Director
Rebecca Owen	Dare Digital Limited	Operations Director
Tim Slater	Dare Digital Limited	Project Director
Dimitri Yiannakis	Dare Digital Limited	Project Director
Chris Nevin	Dare Digital Limited	Project Manager
Anthony Hall	Dare Digital Limited	Technology Director
Enrico Penzo	Dare Digital Limited	Development – Deep Learning (Amazon API) and Three.JS
Danny Brandy	Dare Digital Limited	Development – Website
Noopur Joshi Paul Cowtan	Dare Digital Limited	Development – Website
Paul Cowtan	Dare Digital Limited	Development – Website
Jourdain Coleman Prakash Mourya	Dare Digital Limited	Quality Assurance
Prakash Mourya	Dare Digital Limited	Quality Assurance

Background

With the pandemic curtailing key celebration moments for friends and families in real life, the accompanying gift exchanges of bottles of spirits had moved online too. DIAGEO wanted to bring the emotion back to this digital gifting experience – and generate a competitive eCommerce advantage through an inspiring use of technology. 

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

Our approach started with the thought: “Imagine if you could deliver a personalised message, with its own, unique, meaningful work-of-art”. We conducted extensive research into personalisation, generative art, dynamic videos, and customisation. And boiled everything down to the fact, there’s nothing more personal than a spoken message. To accompany the audio, we needed art. It needed to be visually arresting, dynamic, and most importantly, as personal as the message itself – despite the necessary technical automation. To do this, we developed a host of dynamic assets to create a video synced with the audio. These employed the ultimate aid to personalisation, Amazon’s AWS API, that detects meaningful keywords within the user’s audio message. These keywords are then animated in real-time to generate a one-of-a-kind, personalised kinetic typography animation. The artwork is synchronised with the audio message and can be shared time and time again, to create a memorable experience.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

With social distancing restrictions, 2021 presented many challenges. In these circumstances, DIAGEO wanted to add value to its online sales channel, MALTS.COM. They were looking for a digital tool that would satisfy people’s need to connect across distance – something personal and memorable.   The answer was Message in a Bottle. By giving customers the chance to add a personalised audio message to each purchase, we created a tool that could evoke a strong emotional link. After all, what means more than words of affection between two distant people?   We’ve created a convenient flow inside the e-commerce experience, and a user-friendly system to generate personalised tags inside the warehouses of MALTS. This solution was almost completely autonomous, creating art from user-generated content.   We timed the launch for Father's Day. We built a campaign within the site and through social media, generating awareness for the new product and driving new purchases.  

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

Technically, the experience uses speech to text and natural language processing algorithms to detect meaningful keywords within the user’s audio messages. The keywords are then animated in real-time to generate one of a kind kinetic typography animations personalised for the message receiver. The final result is an animated generative art piece synchronized with the user audio message that can be enjoyed and shared creating a fun and memorable experience for both the giver and receiver. Regarding the art direction, the visual style of DIAGEO is not accessible to the public, as DIAGEO is the umbrella brand of the bottles. That said, the visuals of the messages has used the language from the selected bottles, reinforcing the individual branding styles and connecting the purchased product with the digital art.

List the results (30% of vote)

Our project saw unprecedented levels of engagement, with an increment of +60% on sales for the participating brands. Also, 4 brands in the top 10 sellers on MALTS.COM were part of Message in a Bottle. Our virtual gift tag also outperformed the other personalisation tools (like engraving) on the website by 40%. “Message in a Bottle has been a really transformative activation for us, especially during a time of rapidly shifting consumer behaviour due to COVID. We were not only able to create a more personal and exciting gifting experience for consumers but create a real competitive advantage for our brands during a key occasion” Benjamin Lickfett, Global Head of Digital Innovation at DIAGEO Following the success of our Father’s Day, Message in a Bottle will be rolled out in more than 20 languages, and more brands are currently lining up to be part of the project.