Rubicon
The 50p Challenge

Intelligence

Rubicon fruit juices are authentic, single flavour beverages with a stronghold amongst ethnic consumers. As the business attempted to open up more mainstream markets, it was important to retain the love and respect of the ethnic consumer. As a small player in comparison to other, big-spending brands, Rubicon could not buy ‘share of throat’. It needed to earn the attention of consumers and encourage them to share and amplify any communications.

Interrogation

We wanted to find out what our ethnic consumers care about – not just with regards to soft drinks, but also in their real, everyday lives. Of course, cricket comes high on the agenda. Previously we had produced some well-received sponsorship idents for the TV coverage. But we wanted to go beyond this and create something really special for our audience.

Insight

People love seeing their idols at play and out of their comfort zone – remember the Beckham and Wilkinson spot a few years ago? For Rubicon, we took an all-time great in Muttiah Muralitharan and pitted him against English bowling hero Graeme Swan. We gave them a near-impossible task; to balance a glass on a single stump; to balance a 50p coin on the edge of the glass; then to spin bowl the coin from the glass without dislodging the glass itself – from 22m away!

Results

We filmed the entire event and, of course, because Rubicon is an authentic brand, we filmed it for real and did not cheat. Within the hour the task was complete and, appropriately, Murali came up trumps. The film created a huge viral buzz and, with no seeding budget, achieved over 320,000 views within four weeks. On launch we were ranked the day’s 25th highest viewed global sporting film and the event received press coverage as far away as India, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and US. The amazing film was picked up by Twitter luminaries, including Stephen Fry and Derren Brown, with fans starting to recreate the challenge for themselves.