How whiskey brand Four Walls ‘hired its community’ to run a UGC ad campaign

Instead of hiring an agency to manage its latest ad campaign, the whiskey brand Four Walls took an alternative approach: hiring its community.

Four Walls is launching a promotional merchandise line today emblazoned with rose imagery inspired by one of the brand’s fans, Emberlin Leja, who wrote to the company to share the story of her 97-year-old grandmother, a lifelong bartender named Rose. 

To collect materials for the advertising campaign, the liquor brand — which is co-owned by “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” stars Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day — partnered with the tech platform Adim to dole out prizes totaling $44,444.44 to digital creators who sent in their favorite bar stories, with the explicit goal of using those stories to market Four Walls. For her story, Leja received a prize of $600.

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