When offering advice to a friend or consoling them you might find yourself saying, “Remember, nothing’s perfect.” Well, the Patron Spirits Co. begs to differ. In an entertaining new campaign for its tequila, the company reminds us that while some perfection is debatable, some is not, like a bottle of Patron. Patrón is “Simply Perfect.”
As part of the “Simply Perfect” campaign, Patrón launched a Web site, www.simplyperfect.com, created by Click Here, the interactive division of Dallas-based The Richards Group. Visitors to the site have an opportunity to post text, audio and video messages to debate perfection relating to the issues introduced in the print, outdoor and TV ads.
For example, the spots, which can also be viewed on the site, investigate the issues of football vs. futbol; yacht vs. early retirement; the real thing vs. battery operated; the perfect girl vs. the perfect one night stand and Animal House vs. Caddyshack.
But in addition to those, the site features hundreds of more debates to participate in and people can add new debates to the site as well. Visitors can get involved in conversations about hot topics like, Yankees vs. Mets, the book vs. the movie and deep dish vs. thin crust. Each debate includes a running percentage tally of votes registered.
“The goals of the site are really to create interaction around the brand. The Web site not only allows people to debate about the things that are in the campaign, but it also allows them to submit their own ideas about perfection–like whether a 500-square- foot apartment is better than a 5,000-square-foot house in the suburbs,” explained Paul Herring, director of account planning and strategy at Click Here. “They’re topics that are relevant to them.”
Recognizing that www.simplyperfect.com was a huge opportunity for consumers to interact with the brand in a way they couldn’t with the TV spots and print–their comments appear on the site in seconds–the Click Here team wanted to make sure the site looked and felt like it was easy to interact with while remaining true to the brand.
“We went to great lengths to make sure the design was simple and in our, estimation, perfect. So we really wanted to make sure it was a clean design and there wasn’t a lot of clutter–that they’re able to interact and fun with it,” explained Herring.
Visually, the site maintains the brand aesthetic of beauty and simplicity and keeps in step with the rest of the campaign–the visual frames for the debate topics resemble liquor bottle labels and match those in print and on TV. The navigation method allows visitors to search the site by key word. For instance, type in the word brunette and the blonde vs. brunette debate pops up. Or click on “sort by” and organize the debates by categories such as cars, fashion, food, movies, sports and travel.
“The other neat thing about the way the site works is the more interaction you have with a particular debate on perfection, the larger the box gets,” said Brian Nadurack, creative director, Click Here.
He said some of the debates that have gotten the most attention (so they have the largest boxes) include Caddyshack vs Animal House, DVD vs. theater and Big 12 vs. Big 10.
The latter debate found its way onto message boards on ESPN, demonstrating the viral strength of the site. “The nice thing about this campaign is it is so top of mind–whatever is top of mind right now,” Nadurack said. “It allows us to really get into what the consumer is thinking each day of the week whether or not it happens to be newsworthy or whether it happens to be something specific towards some type of genre, like theatre or sports.”
He said one of the funniest debates on the site turned out to be the concept of two-button vs. three- button. “We did this two-button versus three-button, which is obviously a suit. There’s a big difference in styling, one is very couture. And we’re thinking everybody understands that. The debate became almost instantaneously about a two-button mouse vs. a three-button mouse. Who even knew?”
While having a few laughs, visitors can also learn about the different brands in the Patron portfolio and find out how to mix the perfect drink with them by clicking on one of the handcrafted glass bottles interspersed throughout the debates. A video pops up featuring a bartender who takes you through the steps of creating a Patrón Perfect Cosmo, a Patrón Anejo Alexender and a Georgia Peach Sorbet Margarita.
Online advertising was also used to drive people to the site. Targeted interactive placements could be found on Web sites such as RollingStone.com, Businessweek.com and ComedyCentral.com. For example, an ad on the Sports Illustrated site invited visitors to click either Russian Models or Brazilian models to register their vote as to which is the perfect choice.
NOT SO SIMPLE While the site appears to be pure and simple to visitors, looks can be deceiving. Creating the back end was no easy task. “The reason why its so hard is because it looks so simple. It really had to be one level to get in. How do you create something that allows you to be able to build a back end that can be as big as you want it to be, but yet can still focus in on one individual debate at a time? That is pretty hard dynamic to come up with,” explained Herring.
Based on the layout they got, the first challenge was coming up with the navigation where the debates move around at different speeds, according to Jason Fincanon, who did the programming.
“Everything you see was built in Flash and then we used Ruby on Rails for the back end to tie into the database and house all the comments were putting in and videos that people might upload. Flash pulls everything in from Ruby. As far as the TV commercials that are on there, we are streaming those from VitalStream as Flash video files,” Fincanon said.
The team built the site in such a way that it can be adapted to other types of technology–plans for the future may include bringing the campaign to mobile devices. For now, they are satisfied with www.simplyperfect.com.
“The most gratifying thing is taking something offline and really making it completely interactive–not just an extension, not just a piece of paper that ended up online. That’s what’s really gratifying,” said Nadurack.
