Inside the ‘Goonlivet’: Here’s How Emotive Put Premium Whiskey in a Goon Bag for April Fool’s Day
Sometimes, creativity is about the joy of the unexpected. That’s a fact that the best April Fool’s day pranks know - the ones that have you wondering (if only for a nanosecond), “wait, is this actually a thing?”. Even better, though, are the practical jokes that - deep down - you kind of wish were actually real.
So it was with the Goonlivet, a joyously Australian stunt by Pernod Ricard (which counts the premium whiskey brand Glenlivet amongst its stable). At the start of the month, the brand earnestly announced a new addition to its lineup - the not-so-humble Goonlivet, in which this most discerning whiskey brand was poured into a Goon Bag. If you’re not familiar with the concept of a Goon Bag… well, stay tuned.
With the help of a gloriously straight-faced commercial (and a limited release at Maybe Sammy in Sydney), it appeared for a fleeting moment that the Goon Bag might indeed be the future of whiskey. But, alas, it was all in fact an April Fool’s Day stunt masterminded by the creative minds at Emotive.
To find out more about the campaign - and whether Glenlivet drinkers might actually one day be drinking from Goon Bags - LBB caught up with Pernod Ricard’s global marketing director Eric Thomson and Emotive’s managing partner and head of strategy Michael Hogg…
LBB> Let’s start at the beginning - for our international readers, what is a goon bag? And what kind of role does it occupy in Aussie culture?
Michael> In Australia, ‘goon’ - from the word flagon - traditionally refers to (cheap) boxed wine. To give it a proper origin story, Aussie winemaker Thomas Angrove patented the design for a one-gallon polyethylene bladder in a cardboard box in 1965. Which all sounds very respectable, and it was, making up 50% of wine sales in Australia by the 1970s. As far as its role in Aussie culture goes, while goon isn’t as popular as it once was it still owns a unique place in our hearts, on our Hills Hoists (that’s a clothes line to non-Aussies), used for a drinking game called Goon of Fortune, and under backpackers’ heads. So, while most Aussies don't drink goon, we love that it exists and whether affectionately or ironically, we love that it’s ours.
LBB> And Eric, how would you go about explaining why the idea of Glenlivet being sold in a goon bag is so jarring and unexpected?
Eric> The scotch category is bound by several rules, format being one of them. Consumers in Australia only know scotch in bottles, so putting it in a bag-in-box format or “goon bag” as they are known here - which is known to be a convenient yet perceived as a much less premium format - was definitely unexpected.
LBB> So why did the idea to celebrate April Fool’s Day by launching the Goonlivet first appeal to you? What were your initial thoughts when Emotive pitched it to you?
Eric> The Goonlivet was something that we have been talking about with Emotive since 2020, in response to a brief about challenging conventions within the scotch whisky category. Being at the beginning of our brand repositioning journey with The Glenlivet, at the time it didn’t feel like we had the credentials to launch this unique offering within our market.
Fast forward three years and following the great success of the ‘Obey the Rules. Miss the Fun.’ campaign featuring Anna Paquin, the team felt the Goonlivet was the perfect way to continue the momentum by challenging the norms of how some people view the category.
LBB> Michael, it takes a brave marketer to run with something like this - what do you think that tells you about your relationship with Eric and Pernod Ricard?
Michael> I think it tells us it’s working and I hope that we’re bringing the best out of each other. I also think we’d both take issue with the idea that it takes a brave marketer to run with a good idea. It takes a good marketer. A responsible marketer. It’s far more risky not to be creative, not to get noticed. Eric knows a good idea when he sees one and he has a great instinct for coming at business problems from unexpected angles, which is what we try to do. And over the last three years, he and his team have consistently run with ‘brave’ ideas across a number of Pernod Ricard’s brands we work on together.
LBB> This campaign is very culturally specific to Australia, is there something about the local market that plays to a humorous approach like this?
Eric> Australians love humour and are always keen to engage with brands that don’t take themselves too seriously.
Above: Iconic entertainer Jimmy Rees unboxes the Goonlivet on Instagram.
LBB> It’s also a distinctive marketing ploy within the broader whiskey category. How does this all tie into Glenlivet’s wider brand positioning?
Eric> The Glenlivet brand prides itself on breaking conventions, dating back to 1824 where it was the first distillery to become licensed in the Speyside region. Since then, our distillers have experimented with unique formats and distilling methods to challenge the norm when it comes to producing premium whisky.
Through this heritage, the global brand positioning of ‘Original by Tradition’ was formed. Within our market we appointed Anna Paquin as our spokeswoman as an iteration of the global platform in the ‘Obey the Rules. Miss the Fun.’ campaign – where we challenged the rule-book of whisky by showcasing broader representation of women in whisky, highlighted the versatility of consumption methods (cocktails, straight, however you want). The Goonlivet builds on this even further by placing our product in a format never considered by the broader category.
Michael> That’s right - the brand platform ‘Original by Tradition’ demands distinctiveness and so do the younger audience it's trying to attract. Having already embraced a colourful new visual identity with the ‘Obey the rules. Miss the fun’ campaign and encouraged Aussies to drink scotch and iced tea, launching The Goonlivet felt totally natural.
LBB> You guys worked with some of Australia’s top bartending talent to test the prototype for cocktail making functionality. So - what cocktail would you recommend for the Goonlivet?!
Eric> In line with the irony of the campaign it has to be an old-fashioned (or ‘Goon-fashioned’) – because there’s nothing old-fashioned about it.
LBB> The product launch film plays it spectacularly straight. Are you worried that some consumers might feel disappointed when they discover the prank?!
Michael> Firstly, thanks for saying so. It was a very conscious decision because we didn’t want people to realise it was a prank immediately. That’s our whole goal with this kind of campaign - to walk the line of believability and get people asking is it, isn’t it? But yes, we were also very conscious of provoking disappointment, so we had a co-ordinated plan, working alongside our partners at Poem to communicate that it was a prank across our socials and the landing page, as well as an exclusive offer to trial The Goonlivet for real at Sydney cocktail bar Maybe Sammy, so fans weren’t left totally empty-handed.
Ultimately, I hope most people who believed in The Goonlivet for even a short time feel better to have Goonliveted and lost, than never to have Goonliveted at all.
Eric> This was a huge consideration with the campaign and something we thought about very carefully. The fact that The Goonlivet features our hero product The Glenlivet 12-year-old meant our consumers were still able to enjoy our delicious liquid – but for the most part we think that the humour provided by the campaign was enough to make-good with our audience, alongside those lucky enough to be based in Sydney to enjoy a Goon-fashioned at Maybe Sammy.
LBB> What was the most challenging aspect of getting this idea off the ground, and how did you overcome it?
Eric> Gold taps. I know that’s probably not the answer you were expecting, especially as we turned around a 3D animated film, music composition, shot stills and motion, built a landing page, created a social and PR plan, designed and printed packaging, and developed real working prototype products in just four weeks. But it was sourcing the gold taps. How we overcame it was with persistence and a last minute lucky break - although we did have our design team ready with gold Sharpies and clear coat just in case. Really.
LBB> Finally, there’s a danger this is going to become too popular - so what are you going to do if the public demands more Goonlivets?!
Eric> I’m not one to say ‘never’… let’s leave it at that.
