How Smirnoff Plans to Bring Us Together with a Bubbly New Global Campaign

Acrobats and gymnasts dressed in an eclectic array of colourful outfits, launching themselves from trampolines; pilates balls pinging about, bouncing from the walls. With so much joy and expression filling up the white warehouse set, it’s little wonder that Stephanie Jacoby, Smirnoff’s global brand director describes the brand’s new global campaign as “the most amazing shoot” and “by far the most… ambitiously creative undertaking I've ever been part of”.

The campaign sees partygoers transform into vibrant, bouncing bubbles that come together like an effervescent cocktail - and it’s the jumping off point for a new global brand platform ‘We Do We’, which is all about bringing people together and helping remove the barriers to social connection.

Smirnoff has always been a sociable brand, but this new platform has been inspired by the loneliness epidemic, which has grown since the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. Stephanie explains that the team felt it was important for Smirnoff to take an active role in making it easier for people to come together in real life.

“I think we all saw it starting to bubble up in the press but when we really started to dig into it and really, really research it, getting into the numbers, some of the numbers are really staggering,” says Stephanie. “A couple really stick in my mind - nearly 40% of Americans say that they’re less social now than they were in 2019. And when we look at our younger consumers - LDA [legal drinking age] to 29, nearly 80% of them say that they feel that social connections are weaker than they were even five years ago.”

In tandem with this looming loneliness crisis, the team and their agency McCann had also identified a curious tension point - that this lack of social connection has coincided with an increasing hyper individualism in culture. The idea presented by McCann, ‘We Do We’, subverts the popular saying ‘You Do You’, and finds a way to celebrate everyone’s uniqueness while also forging a sense of community and togetherness. It presents diverse social groups as ‘cocktails’ of different flavours coming together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

“We just felt it was a big idea, taking the idea of ‘you do you’, that is so culturally resonant and understood, but flipping the script on it in a way that felt really timely and important,” says Stephanie. “What I always love about this work is that Smirnoff is a playful, fun brand and we’re a brand that feels like a joyful celebration, but we’re also a value-driven brand. From our inception, this idea of inviting everyone to the party, and inclusion, being baked deep into our DNA. It just felt like it was a timely message, but built on a timeless value that feels really true to where we’ve come from and how we’ve championed different communities over the years.”

The new campaign, ‘Atomic’, expresses that idea through a strong and eye-catching visual metaphor.

“I would say that the visual aspect of this platform is as important as what we are saying. We believe so deeply that colour and vibrancy is so important  - and how that makes you feel. We see it in culture, this idea of dopamine dressing - people want to wear vibrant colours that make you feel different. I think we are a brand that is so vibrant, we have such a huge range of products that I think are genuinely inclusive, we have something for everyone,” says Stephanie. “What we loved about McCann’s approach and their embrace of colour was that it celebrates how big and vibrant and beautiful our product is and what we do. I think we were really captivated by that.”

Aside from the hero film, Stephanie teases that as the campaign rolls out, we’ll see the brand playing with this bubbly visual motif in different ways. One execution that she is particularly excited about is an augmented reality platform that allows users to turn their friends into ‘bubbles’ - and then create friendship cocktails inspired by bringing their pals together.

Craft and attention to detail have been of the utmost importance in bringing the campaign to life. With the hero film and related assets, the team wanted to bring analogue excellence and digital flair together. An enormous cast of acrobats and gymnasts brought the thrill of live action stunts and tricks - working in tandem with the VFX team from The Mill, who had to experiment with physics to ensure that the blobs of colour would behave like bubbles while fizzing with personality.

Eagle-eyed production design nerds will note that each bubble is unique, styled around each performer’s meticulously chosen outfit. “One of the things that McCann definitely would want me to tell you about the way the bubbles were created is that it’s not just a bubble, you’ll notice that the way the bubble is wrapped reflects the clothing of the individual people that are represented. So each bubble is unique,” explains Stephanie. “There was so much thought put into that detail... It was so important to live up to that vision of each person within that collective, which is still uniquely there. And it makes it even more visually compelling.”

While the above the line elements of the campaign are key to getting the ‘We Do We’ message out there, as a platform that is all social connection there is, of course, a huge event element too. Over the course of the campaign’s roll out, there will be over 20 events around the world - kicking off with a huge party in London this week.

The launch event in London, hosted by comedian Fats Timbo and actor (and Strictly Come Dancing 2024 contestant) Layton Williams, was curated by the legendary performers Sink the Pink. In their quest to remove the barriers to socialising, the event had been created with accessible design at the heart of it. The team partnered with accessibility and inclusion consultancy Tilting the Lens and hospitality group Steongate to make sure that people with disabilities can enjoy the benefits of socialising.

“The action we’re going to take in the world is lifting social barriers - how that shows up, we allow to flex market-by-market because there are going to be different cultural conversations, different things that are going to drive real relevance,” explains Stephanie. “Our GB team brought this insight to us around the fact that there are over 12 million disabled individuals in the UK and that three quarters of them have either been disappointed or had to change their plans for a night out because of accessibility issues. Not only is that a horrible experience for that individual, but it also leads to nearly $2bn in losses on a monthly basis to bars and restaurants in the UK.

Diageo, which owns Smirnoff, has been making a concerted effort to embrace accessibility across its portfolio, and Stephanie sees a real and very specific role for Smirnoff to play in particular. “This is a space where we have such an opportunity as a brand that lives in these moments, in these bars and restaurants to make the experience of enjoying Smirnoff not only better for these individuals but actually better for everyone. What inspires us in this space is that actually, by creating solutions that make it better for disabled people, we create experiences that are better for all.”

While ‘We Do We’ is a global platform, Stephanie is mindful that the specific obstacles to in-person socialising do differ from culture to culture, as do the opportunities for Smirnoff. In the USA, for example, Smirnoff will be leveraging sport and manifesting the ‘We Do We’ spirit in terms of what it means to be a fan of a particular team. In Brazil, however, the emphasis will be on dance. 

“That is the key with a global brand. It's like having a really clear north star that is true the world over but giving room to flex, and really drive relevance at a market level is really important,” says Stephanie. Indeed the global-local strategy has strong parallels with the overall message of the campaign, bringing together diverse individuals and cultures to create a lively, vibrant whole. 

Indeed, the creation of the campaign behind the scenes is also a reflection of the spirit of ‘We Do We’ too. By swirling together their own unique skills, the whole crew was able to build something much bigger. It’s so powerful, says Stephanie, that the team wanted to be transparent and show that ethos in action. That’s why the hero spot is also accompanied by a behind the scenes film.

“I think [we wanted] to bring that to life so that you get a glimpse of that behind the scenes, but then the actual execution is this amazing collaboration of creative people, technical people, 3D modelling people, visual effects people and acrobats. I think that collective and that idea of bringing all these unique skills together created something that is truly first-of-its-kind that we couldn’t have achieved if we just shortcut it through a technological approach,” says Stephanie.

“Diversity and inclusion is built into everything we do. I think this is an appreciation of what a collective of unique individuals has the power to create.”