A bold Artist Competition for Rusty Barrel
BRUNCH SERVICES
Rusty Barrel has always embraced bold character and creative energy. It’s a brand that doesn’t follow the usual path, and that confidence creates room for something different.
When we looked at how Rusty Barrel could deepen engagement and expand its presence, we knew a standard product campaign wouldn’t do it justice.
So we proposed something bigger.
An Artist Competition that invited emerging creatives to reinterpret the Rusty Barrel brand in their own way.
The Rusty Barrel team trusted us to build something that extended beyond product and into culture.
Campaigns like this are where things get interesting.
The brief
Rusty Barrel wanted to deepen engagement and strengthen its presence with audiences who value creativity and culture as much as they value great drinks.
A standard product campaign wasn’t going to capture that spirit. The opportunity was to create something that genuinely reflected the brand’s bold character and connected Rusty Barrel with creative communities in a meaningful way.
For the campaign to succeed, it needed to reach culturally aligned audiences, generate strong engagement and reinforce the distinctive aesthetic that makes Rusty Barrel stand out.
It also needed to establish a campaign model the brand could build on in future.
What we did
From concept through to execution, we created and launched Rusty Barrel’s inaugural Artist Competition.
We structured a paid media campaign designed to reach emerging artists and culturally aligned communities across Meta.
The campaign began with awareness activity introducing the competition and positioning Rusty Barrel as a brand that actively backs creativity. Bold, artist-led visuals and confident messaging ensured the campaign felt unmistakably on-brand.
Traffic campaigns then guided interested audiences to the competition landing page, where they could explore the brief and submit their work.
As engagement built, we implemented progressive retargeting to encourage completion of submissions. Messaging was refined throughout the campaign based on engagement behaviour, ensuring we converted interest into action.
Behind the scenes, performance was actively monitored and optimised. Creative, targeting and messaging were adjusted to maintain momentum and drive participation.
scope of work
- Campaign concept development
- Strategic positioning and competition framework
- Creative and messaging direction
- Paid media strategy and planning
- Meta campaign setup and optimisation
- Audience targeting across creative and cultural segments
- Retargeting framework to support submission completion
- Performance monitoring, optimisation and reporting
The Outcome
The campaign reached 100,561 people and generated 434 artist submissions.
Brand engagement increased by 204% during the campaign period.
More importantly, Rusty Barrel strengthened its position as a brand that genuinely backs creativity.
Instead of running a traditional product campaign, the brand created a platform for participation. That shift transformed passive audiences into active contributors and introduced Rusty Barrel to new creative communities in an authentic way.
It also established a repeatable campaign framework that can continue to evolve year after year.
