British artist and photographer Miles Aldridge is greatest recognized for his saturated, movie noir-esque mise-en-scène, described as “on a regular basis actuality on acid.” For the previous three years, he’s additionally been working with whisky maker Glenmorangie to convey its international “It’s Sort of Scrumptious and Great” marketing campaign to life.
Now he’s partnered with the LVMH-owned model and longtime company DDB Paris as soon as extra that may push the model additional down the technicolor rabbit gap he helped create.
The up to date inventive builds on the work Glenmorangie has been doing to make its flagship single malt extra accessible to the lots, ditching somber and smoky whisky promoting tropes in favor of a brilliant palette designed to encourage extra folks to strive a dram.
Aldridge has added to his profitable 2020 marketing campaign, which showcases moments of enjoyment (like having a bubble bathtub or taking a practice journey) by a kaleidoscopic lens of magical realism, to showcase how “the straightforward pleasure of whisky” can elevate these experiences. New scenes discover a hot-air ballon journey and a go to to a fortune teller.
Like their predecessors, the brand new scenes are rooted within the model’s daring orange hue and are saturated with colour.
For Glenmorangie’s international advertising and marketing director Caspar MacRae this isn’t only a advertising and marketing marketing campaign; it’s a model manifesto born out of client analysis and in depth conversations with Dr. Invoice Lumsden, the distiller behind Glenmoragnie’s single malts, whose job is to make issues which are “merely scrumptious.”
“This work is an expression of that technique, with the intention of creating whisky fascinating and related to individuals who won’t have thought-about single malt earlier than,” defined MacRae.
And it’s working. Since Glenmorangie launched the unique “It’s Sort of Scrumptious and Great” push in 2019, the model has seen a 20% progress in volumes consumed and a 40% progress to its gross sales. That is forward of the whisky market’s total annual progress price of 6% a yr.
The push will run throughout TV, cinema, out-of-home, retail and extra worldwide in markets from America to India, the U.Ok and Germany to China and past.
Placing stereotypes on ice
Scotch promoting is often tied in legacy and often squared towards males. Nonetheless with the marketplace for whisky set to hit $86.1 billion by 2027, Glenmorangie joins a refrain of whisky entrepreneurs who’re altering their tune to attraction to a youthful, wider demographic.
“After we began off, the ambition was to do one thing that didn’t really feel like conventional whisky promoting,” mentioned DDB government inventive director Alexander Kalchev. “The outcomes show we succeeded, however we’d barely scratched the floor with the inventive execution.”
He mentioned the temporary this time round was to dive deeper into the story and recruit extra individuals who had been “traditionally intimidated” by the whisky world, going larger and higher with the eventualities and storytelling.
Legacy manufacturers together with rival Johnnie Walker have equally been shaking up their inventive strategy and media planning, tapping into new concepts and platforms to ensure they’re prime of thoughts for millennials and Gen Z customers. Chivas, for example, has been leaning on the ability of Ok-Pop and Instagram to market to younger women and men in Asia together with China, Korea and Singapore.
“One of many issues we wished to do with this marketing campaign was current whisky as one thing that’s inviting to everybody,” mentioned MacRae.
The marketing campaign drops amid a worldwide motion dubbed “Our Whisky,” which is looking upon whisky makers to enhance the illustration of ladies of their advertising and marketing communications following a research that discovered the world’s prime whisky manufacturers’ Instagram accounts discovered posts that includes males outnumber girls by 228%.
Although some manufacturers have addressed this disparity by rebrands and campaigns directed at girls (Jane Walker, anybody?) MacRae mentioned Glenmorangie has been “implicit, slightly than specific” in selling its product throughout all sexes.
“A few of our rivals have taken the extra specific phrases of claiming that that is for demographics that maybe have been underrepresented earlier than. We didn’t really feel it was essential to make that an overt marketing campaign,” he famous. “However we did need to make it implicit in all our promoting and all our contact factors that it is a model which is inviting to all and makes a transparent model promise to folks.”
World particulars
Making certain the marketing campaign was actually international has been a pursuit and a problem for Glenmorangie and DDB. Nonetheless, MacRae mentioned the “visible language” the pair created with Aldridge has helped it create a “model world” that may translate throughout continents.
“The problem once you’re doing a worldwide marketing campaign is to do one thing that feels sufficiently common, however not generic,” chimed in Kalchev, explaining that every scene within the new marketing campaign has been crafted primarily based on the concept it might be a “common” expertise. For instance, occurring a scorching air balloon or visiting a tarot reader isn’t restricted by geography.
For MacRae this has notably turn out to be useful in “darkish markets” like India the place specific alcohol promoting is banned. Level-of-sale and retail promotions have been leaned on closely, even gaining the model the Platinum Award for greatest in present on the latest South Asia SABRE Awards.
Kalchev agreed the inventive provided lots of room, particularly for darkish markets, to construct experiences for purchasers. “That’s as a result of the world is so wealthy, so inviting, and so lovely,” he mentioned.
Success for MacRae will see the gross sales momentum proceed, however he’d additionally wish to see model fairness and long-term perceptions boosted, too.
Glenmorangie is positioning itself as an accessible, however luxurious model. As such, the marketer would really like this marketing campaign to assist its value premium (the place a 10-year-old malt usually clocks in round $40).
“It’s definitely not the most cost effective whisky on the earth to make, so we need to current ourselves as an aspirational luxurious deal with that’s inviting for all,” he completed.
