Case study · Food & Drink
Christmas drinks gifting is dominated by supermarket deals and global beer brands. Black Sheep Brewery wanted a bigger share of it online. We placed its hero gifts across national, regional and lifestyle media, and made sure nearly every piece linked straight to its Christmas shop. Festive online sales rose by £21,000 on the year before, its best ever Christmas online.
- +£21K festive online sales, year on year
- 3x Christmas gift purchases
- 60 pieces of coverage
- 90% of coverage carried a link
- Client Black Sheep Brewery
- Sector Food & Drink, brewing
- Services Consumer PR, product placement, sampling
- When Christmas 2023
- Audience UK gift buyers and beer lovers
- Channels National, regional and lifestyle media, online gift guides
What did Black Sheep need?
Black Sheep has been brewing in Masham, North Yorkshire, for more than 30 years. Christmas is its biggest gifting season, but the market is crowded and price-led, and the brewery was not getting its share of online sales.
- Business objective: grow Christmas online sales of the brewery’s hero gifts, year on year.
- Communication objective: put those gifts in front of national, regional and lifestyle audiences over the festive period, with links that send readers straight to the Christmas gifting page.
What was the insight?
Christmas shoppers read gift guides with their wallet out. A mention without a link is awareness. A mention with a link is a sale waiting to happen.
So we judged every placement on one question: can the reader click through and buy? The idea was every placement a shop window.
What did we do?
- Hero products. We focused on the gifts most likely to sell: the beer advent calendar, gift packs, Blitzen Christmas ale and the brewery’s spirits.
- Targeted pitching and sampling. We pitched and sampled to national, regional and lifestyle editors writing Christmas gift guides.
- Links first. We prioritised titles that include buy links, so coverage pointed straight to the Christmas gifting page.
- Timed to promotions. Messaging matched Black Sheep’s own offers, so readers arrived at the right deal at the right time.
What did it achieve?
Results by stage of the AMEC evaluation framework, with the source for each figure.
| Stage | Measure | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outputs | Pieces of coverage | 60 | Prohibition coverage log |
| Outputs | Coverage carrying a direct link to the gifting page | 90% | Prohibition coverage analysis |
| Outcomes | Tracked referrals to the Christmas gifting page | 548 | Black Sheep web analytics |
| Outcomes | Traffic to the gifting range, year on year | +556% | Black Sheep web analytics |
| Outcomes | Traffic to the beer advent calendar page, year on year | +108% | Black Sheep web analytics |
| Impact | Festive online sales, year on year | +£21K | Black Sheep Brewery |
| Impact | Christmas gift purchases, year on year | 3x | Black Sheep Brewery |
| Impact | Online sales period | Best ever for Christmas | Black Sheep Brewery |
What did Black Sheep get from it?
Coverage that paid for itself. Links in the coverage sent hundreds of buyers straight to the gifting page, gift purchases tripled, and the brewery had its best ever Christmas online, with some products selling out.
“We’re always safe in the knowledge that Prohibition will deliver what we want in time.”
What did we learn?
- Links are the result. Choosing titles that link turned coverage into sales we could count.
- Lead with the gift, not the brand. Editors wanted products their readers could buy that week.
- What we would do differently: add tracked links to every placement from day one, so each title’s sales can be compared, not just overall referrals.
