James Ready plays the lottery

With the gap between discount and mainstream beer disappearing, the price advantage that James Ready historically enjoyed was eroding, and the brand was at serious risk of losing drinkers.

Leo Burnett decided to take consumer participation to an even higher level with the use of bottle caps. For years underneath each cap, drinkers discovered one of over 600 surprise messages like board game pieces and instructions.

The agency launched a campaign with an in-case letter, behind-the-label message and a Facebook post that introduced the latest J.R. caps and promotion - "The James Ready Spelling Bee Lottery," which combined packaging, real-time drinker participation and social media.

Each new James Ready cap would either feature a letter, number or form of punctuation. Drinkers were encouraged to save these game pieces and then visit the James Ready Facebook page on a specific date and time. James Ready then posted a video featuring a word and prize. The first drinker to post a picture of that word spelled with their collected beer caps won. Twice a week over a six-month period, drinkers were told to visit J.R.'s Facebook page at 5 p.m. where a video was posted that revealed a prize and a word.

Leo Burnett achieved a 36% increase in fans sharing the content and generated a reach exceeding 19,000. The Facebook page generated 24% more fans, while posts and shares produced a 221% increase in "likes."