James Ready had carved out success within the discount segment through innovative marketing that directly engaged drinkers. With small budgets, JR leveraged its owned assets like beer cases, bottle caps, labels and Facebook to incite interaction with its drinkers.

But the gap between discount and mainstream was disappearing – the minimum price of beer increased and mainstream brands were going on sale more often – giving drinkers a reason to question the value of shopping this category. The changing landscape eroded the price advantage that JR historically enjoyed, and the brand was at risk of losing drinkers.

JR always recognized its fans and the content they create. It's this value exchange that has allowed JR to retain a very loyal following. It's put fans on bottles, in its in-case newsletter and showcased them online. But with Facebook's change to Timeline, fan posts were suddenly confined to a small box that nobody really sees. So JR would use these changes to drive strategic and creative innovation.

The James Ready Awesome Awards – a Facebook first – was an award show hosted on Facebook that would, like the Oscars, celebrate the best of the best in various categories and award gold trophies. To introduce the program, JR launched a Facebook page and inserted an in-case newsletter with all the details, including the award categories like Awesomest Tattoo, Awesomest Furniture Made of 2-4s, Awesomest James Ready Song and Awesomest Use of Beer Caps.

Fans posted hundreds of entries to the JR Facebook wall, and were then invited to see the nominees and winners revealed in a four-part, somewhat-live award ceremony on May 3 at 5:50 p.m.

Fans gathered on Facebook before the show, sharing their award show outfits and making predictions for the night. As each segment was uploaded, they posted comments and reactions to the JR wall. By watching it live, even people who weren't up for awards could win great prizes like 5-of-a-kind T-shirts, pizzas delivered right to their doors and an industrial-grade hot dog roller.

In the end, JR shipped 17 solid gold-coloured Awesome Award trophies to its most loyal and vocal drinkers.

For an execution that cost under $2,000 to produce, the return was exceptional. The campaign encouraged fans to showcase their love for the brand in front of their whole social network. JR received hundreds of picture and video submissions. Compared to pre-campaign activity, it saw page views jump 365% and had a 107% increase in people actively talking about the page and the beer.