The campaign reached 2.3m people on Facebook, with almost 46,000 direct engagements. On Twitter, around 100,000 people were reached, with 2,871 engagements. Instagram, which is less pervasive, yielded a reach of 187,000 people and 53,600 engagements.

The campaign offered music fans the opportunity to win a single, iconic limited edition Riky Rick X Russian Bear bottle, with a cutting-edge design and the winner’s face and lyrics. Fans were invited to compose their own creative rap lyrics and tweet or post them on Instagram using the #IAMNEXT hashtag.

Sicelo “JRetta” Ngozwana, the overall #IAMNEXT winner, won his own limited edition bottle with his image engraved on it, just like the Riky Rik limited edition bottle.

Platinum Seed was responsible for the content strategy, social media management, content marketing, website design and development of the campaign, which ran from December 2016 to March 2017. Using data from social media sources, it built an understanding of the hip-hop fans it was targeting and enhanced their experience by elevating them to the status of their favourite artists. It was the culmination of two-year collaboration between the brand and Mzansi hip-hop music star Riky Rick.

“This digitally-led campaign was driven by South Africans’ love of hip-hop music,” says Platinum Seed MD Bradley Elliott. “We developed content that attracted and engaged the right audiences and amplified the message that even the fans can achieve the iconic status of being immortalised on a bottle of Russian Bear Vodka.”

“We believe the initial success of the campaign was due to its ability to get musicians and fans excited through well-crafted engagements,” adds paid media manager, Sebastian Clay. “We don’t see this as a once-off activation but something that has potential to grow into an exciting and continuous stream of content.”

Fifty finalists won a limited-edition bottle and a further 50 bottles were given to randomly selected voters.