For over a century, the Martini brand has long signified cool Italian living, and in the former communist sphere, was a coveted brand.

However, after the fall of communism in the Czech Republic, the cache of the brand had languished and regional and local variants came to dominate the market.

The distributor wanted to increase market share, but was uncertain about investing heavily in the brand. That's when the agency made a unique proposal; the client would only have to pay for creative if the sales increased by 50%...

Knowing that a simple image and TVC campaign would not achieve such an increase of sales (plus the media budget was meager), I proposed a series of action which would play upon the classic trend life-cycle model.

Firstly, utilising my contacts with publishers, we organised a series of co-branded parties with some of the trendiest fashion titles in the Czech Republic, (such as Elle, Hele, Reflex, etc), who exchanged ad space for free product.

Invites to these parties were at the discretion of the publishers and the distributor, and customers recieved the invite on a unique bottle neck card with each Martini and Bacardi bottle purchased at select bars.

This engaged the trend-setters and early adopters, who provided the foundation for a special promotion; fill a Martini "passport" with six drink stamps at participating bars, and stand a chance to win a posh round the world trip in style.

The print ads then rolled out with the passports attached, and these were also distribtued via Martini "zebra girl" teams at popular nightspots. The demand for passports was so popular we had to increase the print run.

We also dominated the points of sale with door stickers, table tents, and a give-away calendar with cocktail recipes for entrants.

The result was a 180% increase in sales, and the establishment of Martini as the drink of choice amongst the young stylish sets of the Czech Republic.