Bundaberg Rum Think Tank
Campaign and Microsite
Services:
Digital Advertising Services: Elevate Your Brand’s Presence
Web Design Sydney | High-Performing Custom Websites
Contracted by
Leo Burnett
Insight
Bundaberg Rum is one of Australia’s most iconic spirits, originally crafted in 1888 as an ingenious solution to a molasses surplus. While the brand had long been associated with resourceful thinking, by 2011 its image had begun to lose relevance with younger audiences. For many younger men, Bundy was their father’s drink—proudly Aussie, yes, but also lowbrow and outdated. The challenge was to reposition Bundaberg as The Thinking Man’s Rum and re-engage this audience with a fresh, intelligent campaign that honoured the brand’s heritage of cleverness while pushing it into modern digital territory.
Idea
To help achieve this repositioning, the creative team at Leo Burnett conceived The Think Tank—a digital platform that invited Australians to submit their most bothersome everyday conundrums. These dilemmas, once submitted, were handed over to the broader community of self-declared thinkers for ingenious solutions. The most brilliant ideas were selected and transformed into short, humorous online films that played on Bundaberg’s playful tone and history of resourcefulness.
I was brought on to lead the design, development, and animation of the campaign’s digital execution. This included the full design and build of the Think Tank landing page and Facebook application. At a time when Facebook apps were still a major marketing vehicle, I worked within the platform’s constraints to create an intuitive and visually engaging user experience that felt native to both the platform and the Bundaberg brand. The app served as the central hub for submissions, interactions, and voting. To ensure engagement beyond Facebook, I also designed and coded a standalone landing page that extended the campaign into a broader web context, complete with a gallery of solutions and embedded video content.
Additionally, I developed a suite of animated banner ads to drive traffic and awareness. These used character animation, kinetic typography, and branded visual cues to communicate the quirky intelligence of the campaign while maintaining performance across a range of display networks. Animation timings and CTA interactions were crafted to subtly prompt clicks without overwhelming or fatiguing the viewer. All assets were optimized for fast loading, cross-platform consistency, and compliance with media specifications.
Impact
The response to the Think Tank was overwhelmingly positive. Thousands of users engaged with the platform, submitting ideas, proposing solutions, and sharing the resulting videos. The campaign helped shift perceptions of Bundaberg among its target audience, contributing to a measurable uplift in brand sentiment and relevance with younger drinkers. Media coverage was amplified through cheeky stunts—such as the infamous apology for blowing up a fake crocodile—sparking global attention and reinforcing Bundy’s uniquely irreverent tone.
The Think Tank remains one of Bundaberg Rum’s most memorable digital activations. It predated many of today’s user-generated content campaigns, bringing together social participation, brand storytelling, and native digital craft in a way that felt distinctly local and original. From strategy to execution, it was a campaign rooted in wit, collaboration, and craft—and I’m proud to have played a key role in bringing it to life.
