In late 2023, the spirits industry faced the risk of receiving a second tax hike in the space of six months, which would have amounted to a cumulative duty rise of £1.50 on every bottle of spirit. The UK Spirits Alliance, which represents over 280 small and independent distilleries wanted to warn then Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, that the increased tax would add further unnecessary burdens to an already struggling spirits industry and hospitality sector.
Whilst the UK Spirits Alliance published a submission to the Treasury before the chancellor’s autumn statement, to guarantee success they also needed to drive their message amongst political stakeholders and influencers within Westminster. MessageSpace worked with the UK Spirits Alliance to create and activate a digital advertising campaign to target the Conservative government and wider party influencers and stakeholders.
The Solution
In order to make the camapign unmissable to the key target audience, MessageSpace planned and bought high-impact digital advertising media across leading political insider blogs including ConservativeHome, Guido Fawkes and the Spectator.
The campaign ran for two weeks ahead of the 2023 Autumn Budget, and in total delivered:
- 3 million unique advertising impressions
- Over 3,000 clicks on UK Spirits Alliance advertisments across platforms
- Over 2,600 unique visitors to UK Spirits Alliance webpages ahead of the Autumn Statement.
The campaign was a success, with Jeremy Hunt freezing all alcohol duties until August 2024 in his Autumn Statement. Our clients at the UK Spirits Alliance said:
We are delighted by the Chancellor’s decision to freeze duty today and how well the campaign has gone. Our work with MessageSpace provided a genuine return on investment and we would most definitely partner with them again in the future”.
“This was the most innovative, fast-paced creative campaign we have ever run on the issue of excise duty and by partnering with MessageSpace, we were able to draw attention to the facts that matter.
We know the advertising reached our intended audience across government from the feedback we had received. This helped MPs make the case that support for the struggling hospitality sector was needed.