Aberfeldy adds value to 'the Golden Dram' for the travel retail market
Attracting attention in a crowded market requires increasing amounts of creativity and a certain amount of lateral thinking. When international drinks giant Bacardi Limited wanted to promote its Aberfeldy Highland Single Malt Whisky brand to the travel retail market, it asked agency Jones Knowles Ritchie (jkr) to draw on the brand's heritage for an imaginative in-store campaign.
Challenge
"Bacardi was looking for an imaginative way to promote its Aberfeldy brand in the international travel market. At the same time, it wanted to provide an incentive to uplift sales as well as do something that was fun and memorable."
Andrew Knowles, founder, jkr
Creating a new market for an old brand
The Aberfeldy Distillery in the Highlands of Scotland has been producing distinctive single malt whiskies since 1898. Originally established by John Dewar & Sons, today Aberfeldy is one of Bacardi Limited's 'Last Great Malts' collection.
"The marketing director of Bacardi had been telling us about the importance of travel retail to the company and that they wanted to do something new," says Knowles. "We explained that digital print is the perfect solution to pilot promotional ideas. Bacardi later approached us to come up with an attractive, novel and practical concept for a container for two bottles of Aberfeldy whisky to promote the brand."
Along with drawing on the whisky's quality and heritage, timing the launch was also a critical factor. Father's Day, in June 2014, had been marked for the campaign, but that was less than three months away.
"We began developing ideas around the brand's history and values, and also looked for a solution that would be fun and timely," says Knowles. "We had to act quickly, as it's not unusual for the design process to take three months.There were other challenges, too. While the cachet of a limited edition, high-perceived value campaign would help promote sales, it's also a concept where the unit costs of materials could be high, so being cost-effective was an important consideration too," he says.
Solution
"jkr came to us as corrugated engineers and printing specialists to design and print a special box for them. They were looking for a litho quality finish and, with the HP Scitex FB10000 Industrial Press, we were able to give them that."
Tim Boore, technical director, The Image Factor
The freedom to do something different
For inspiration, jkr used the Pitilie Burn, the highland stream where the distillery traditionally drew water for its whisky."The Pitilie Burn was also the source of gold, and one of the names for Aberfeldy single malt is 'the golden dram'," Knowles says. "We came up with the idea of a branded digitally printed corrugated carrier with high quality full-color images to hold two bottles of whisky that was styled and decorated to look like a prospector's rucksack. This fulfilled Bacardi's objectives of novelty, encouraging multiple sales and drawing on the distillery's history."
Along with strong Aberfeldy branding, the robust rucksack carrier showed stitching and leather pockets holding different bar tools: a bottle opener, ice shovel, long stirring spoon and a double jigger. On the other side was a large Aberfeldy seal saying, 'Seekers of Gold - Drinkers of Malt'.
"We worked with Bacardi to leverage Father's Day for the Aberfeldy single malt whisky campaign," says Knowles. "It would be a busy time at the airport, and it would also be a buying opportunity for both men and women."
Further adding to the value and experience, anyone who bought two bottles received a personalized and numbered license to pan for gold in the Pitilie Burn as well as the rucksack carrier. This license was placed into a black envelope and hand-sealed with the Aberfeldy insignia in gold ink.
Result
"Digital printing enabled the brand to become more relevant. It makes it possible to have an overall idea and to tailor it to specific markets in specific ways. Taking a brand to 20 to 30 markets used to be very hard, but with digital printing that can be more fluid."
Andrew Knowles, founder, jkr
Translating the characteristics of a brand into each market
Ensuring the brand values of a historic single malt whisky needed to be consistent with the functional design and strength of the carrier. Added to that were the unforgiving criteria of deadlines and budgets."As the carrier progressed, we received samples for evaluation on the final material (E-flute corrugated board)," says Knowles. "There were lots of refinements and we could see samples in the final colors, finish and material each time and get feedback in a real environment. That's an amazing advantage!"
The Image Factory printed and finished all the prototypes and the final job using its HP Scitex FB10000 Industrial Press. For the production run, it turned around 3,000 finished rucksack carriers in three days using four colors with a gloss coating applied during printing."With the HP Scitex FB10000, we were able to meet both the litho finish the client wanted as well as producing it on budget," Boore adds. "Structurally, the box met the specification, too, delivering strength with minimum weight."
"Digital print gave us the ability to act quickly and advantage of an opportunity," Knowles concludes. "It's great for pilot runs and experimentation; it's also cost effective but the Aberfeldy project was driven by the need for speed and that's
where digital really scores highly"
