How We Helped Grosvenor Casinos' Audience to 'Deal With It'

What's the big idea?

Lockdown changed everything. Simple tasks became complicated and a whole host of new challenges came along too. People weren’t sure where to turn for advice. We figured Grosvenor could help!

Amidst a sea of brands talking about these ‘unprecedented times’, we saw an opportunity to build the GrosvenorCasinos.com brand with their traditionally stoic audience, by giving them two things they were actually looking for: a little entertainment & a little advice.

Enter ‘Deal With It’, a social campaign featuring comedian Dom Joly, designed to raise a smile with online casino fans by offering no-nonsense advice for lockdown life.

The Execution

The campaign started with a self-shot video in which Dom invited the GrosvenorCasinos.com audience to ask their lockdown questions - and ask they did. Then Dom started dishing out straight-talking (slightly silly) advice.

In a series of short social films, shot by Joly’s wife using a Go-Pro camera (true story), we helped with all kinds of issues - from what type of facial hair the modern man should sport, to stopping a flatmate stealing your food from the fridge.

And it wasn’t just the public getting involved, as influencers across a range of key audience interest points sought Dom’s advice too – giving our campaign extra reach.

The Results

Responsible for both creative & media, we beat the brand benchmark for video view through rate by 26%, exceeding campaign targets for total views and cost per view.

We saw questions for Dom coming in across the country and some special moments for fans as the personalised video replies went out. (There was even a giant photo of one our commenters shipped out to mount over their toilet.)

As well as taking invaluable learnings about our casino fans, we created an engaged audience of just under one million, who we’re now continuing the conversation with.

Two months ago, you’d have been laughed out of the room for suggesting self-shooting a project like this. It’s testament to the bravery of our clients, the Waste team and Dom himself that we’ve been able to create some really funny, topical, good-looking content at a time when many brands are still struggling to know how to react.

Alistair Campbell, our Creative Director