Diageo needed to understand whether Guinness, one of its primary trademarks, had the potential to stretch into new categories and, in doing so, strengthen its position in Africa, and to what degree.

One new product stood out from the innovation pipeline – Triple Black, a 30% ABV dark spirit – and Barfly was brought in to run a two-month pilot in Douala in eight hand-selected accounts from our Cameroon network across both on and off-premise channels. Segmentation spanned high and low tempo venues to test different occasions for the new-to-world brand.

Filmed consumer intercepts and an end-of-trial Deep Dive with the participating bar and store managers added qualitative richness and clarification to the weekly rate of sale data that was gathered. Detailed investigation into pricing strategy, pack optimisation, liquid quality, activation concepts and a range of other critical topics ensured no stone was left unturned during the final debrief.

Exceptional rate-of-sale during the pilot has seen Diageo now launch Triple Black formally in Cameroon, with Barfly having since worked on other new innovations targeting further growth across the continent.