How Jagermeister found their flow to throw immersive house parties for students

THE BRIEF

Jagermeister already has strong brand recognition among students. Raptor’s brief, therefore, was to reaffirm that relationship and introduce new products through a series of hype-inducing events.

The concept they devised was deceptively simple. They would host house parties in various UK cities with large student populations, stocking the fridges with the brand’s products and the bill with local DJs and MCs who were invited to bring along friends and family.

The promo took inspiration from 90s rave culture and the scene’s if-you-know-you-know parties, with distinctive brand assets and flyers that asked would-be attendees to text a secret to a mobile number. (The secrets would be anonymously displayed at the house parties, creating an interactive and highly shareable feature for guests.)

As for the precise location of the parties, these were not shared with the students until a few days before – further fuelling the sense of secrecy surrounding the events. It was a tight concept, and one Raptor knew would get students talking. All they needed to do now was make it work.

FINDING THE SOLVE-ALL TOOL

But there was a snag.

While the promotional strategy spoke to the immersive nature of the event, and the need to keep attendees guessing, it was proving complex to manage from the back-end.
After all, this was a campaign that stretched across multiple cities and campuses and relied on a series of automations to filter people to the right event and capture all of the necessary data points.

Raptor were able to find software for individual pieces of the puzzle (SMS marketing, survey tools, CRM) but they didn’t speak to one another. What they needed was one single source of truth – a platform that would allow them to send out automated SMS messages and emails, store responses, and process RSVPs, while giving them a single-view window on their attendees.

Which is where CM.com came in.

A 360 solution, CM.com equipped Raptor with an armoury of features that allowed them to map out and manage the campaign from one single platform. They were able to use the mobile marketing tool to send out the SMS’; Pages to receive and process the responses; and Workflows to put in place the automation flows and match attendees to the correct region. Underpinning all of this was CM.com’s Customer Data Platform (CDP) – which stores and unifies the data gathered across the various touchpoints and provides a comprehensive view of each attendee.

Intricate, creative and bang on-theme – Raptor had found their flow.

EARLY TO THE PARTY

The house parties brought together party-hungry students, lively DJ sets and student MCs, with light boxes and exuberant decor adding to the ambience. The uplift for Raptor and – by extension – Jagermeister was just as exhilarating.

As well as demonstrating how brands can use events to get closer to their audience, Raptor’s story offers an intriguing clue as to how ticketing is evolving.

Whereas traditionally organisers would set up shop on ticketing platforms and wait for attendees with a high level of intent to drop in, now they are meeting them halfway on the channels they already use – and nurturing intent through intuitive, omnichannel customer journeys.

You can see it in Raptor’s mechanic of asking would-be attendees to share their secrets over text, and festivals sharing exclusive tracks from headliners to tee-up next year’s pre-sale. Call it immersion or just clever marketing, it works.

Admittedly, it’s an approach that takes a bit of innovation and tech to get right, as Raptor’s story shows. And you have to be organised enough to get your promotional ducks in a row first. But if that’s the way things are heading, why not invest now and get ahead of the curve?

To read more about the event, here's the case study from Raptor; https://raptor-london.co.uk/case-study/jagermeister