Before (and after) winning the pitch for Zacapa – the luxurious sippable rum that thinks it’s a whisky or cognac – I joined lots of fine spirit brands to see what they did to keep their fans engaged.
Over the last fourteen months or so, one whisky has really stood out as offering a fantastic example of credible, targeted RM: Ardbeg.
What I love about Ardbeg RM is the feel of it. Every email, video and web experience I receive feels like it’s been created by people who really do love the stuff. Not in a loud, over-excited PR way, but with a natural and down-to-earth passion. There’s no loud trumpet of marketing blasting through every sentence, the copy cack-handedly written by some child fresh out of Bucks who’s still sulking that they didn’t get to be the art director. Sure, it could be, technically, better written, but there’s a quiet authenticity to it that’s awfully appealing.
For me, what Ardbeg pulls off is the sense that it is the same small distillery it’s always been, nestled all the way up north of the border on the beautiful island of Islay. And despite being owned by Glenmorangie, which means Ardbeg is actually in the LVMH stable, it still is, in a way, that independent company of yore. Click on ‘Whisky’ on the brand site and you’ll see a bottle slowly fill – next to two pairs of muddy boots arranged in a wink-wink fashion, under the headline ‘Talk dirty to me.’
That’s enough to give the infamous Diageo legal bods a heart attack (“Sex? Alcohol? TOGETHER?”) in under three seconds.
The latest RM communication is a case in point. The inside of a heavily-charred barrel is called ‘alligator skin’ and a new edition of Ardbeg named Ardbeg Alligator has just been released (today, in fact) offering “a unique barbecue flavour and spicy bite”. So the brand team has created a little – and I mean that in a good way; stick with me – campaign based around the illustrious and little-known history of alligators on Islay (apparently bigger and much more ferocious than their Florida cousins).
There’s a wonderfully droll “croc-umentary” featuring an Ardbeggian by the fire recounting the myth of the Islay-gators – “For as long as I can remember…and before that” – plus a short booklet with a history of the snappy beasties and a poem that silkily entwines the experience of drinking Ardbeg Alligator with thrashing about with a real live ‘un.
There’s no feeling at all that Ardbeg are trying to amuse anyone other than themselves and the people who love Ardbeg. The email doesn’t even contain the word ‘whisky’ (because if you like Ardbeg, you know what the hell it is, right?) and the product information is woven so skillfully – and sparingly – throughout the email, video and booklet, that I hardly feel I’m being sold to at all. This is proper advertising.
So when I say ‘little campaign’ admiringly, it’s because Ardbeg have not tried to reinvent Twitter or created a Facebook app because everyone else has. They are not trying to desperately grab the attention of the world and her husband. Instead, they have, quite beautifully, stuck to targeting the right people in the right way. Marvellous.
And do you know what? I don’t drink whisky, but I’m almost bloody tempted to get some of the stuff!
